1.05 is bringing a change to CC effects in Diablo 3, including the Frost Nova AOE stuns that are so useful with the Windup Wizard build. 

While infinite CC rotations can feel make players feel awesome, it's fleeting. If CC becomes too powerful, it can trivialize most major mechanics and the game can become boring.

The new rules are fairly complicated, and it seems the change to gameplay style will be a sort of woozy back and forth of usefulness of freezes as combat ebbs and flow, with your best chance to stun right when you aggro a mob and decreasing as you pound that monster but then gradually reseting in chance back to usefulness if the mob flees.

How It Works:

Monsters have a "CC resistance" that is stored on a per-monster basis.

The CC resistance starts at 0%.  For every 1 second CC that is applied to the monster, the monster receives 10% CC resistance.

Monsters lose 10% of their CC resistance every second that they are not CC’d.

Elite monster CC resistance is capped at the current reduction values already active for Elites.  In other words, CC resistance on most Elite monsters is capped to:

35% in Normal

50% in Nightmare

65% in Hell

65% in Inferno

Blizzard will keep their eye on windup even beyond 1.0.5:

As previous mentioned, this means that near-infinite CC strategies will still work.  We're okay with these strategies remaining viable, as we love how powerful it makes players feel. (That said, we will continue to keep an eye on these strategies and may make some changes in the future if we feel it will be better for the health of the game.)

Developer Journal: Crowd Control Changes

While patch 1.0.4 has very few nerfs, one of them does affect the wizard. Rather than waiting for players to discover this change in the patch notes or while playing, I wanted to call it out here because it affects a build that I find to be quite cool and enjoy a lot. 

Energy Twister is having its proc coefficient reduced from 0.25 to 0.125.  For players who may not know what proc coefficients are: they affect how effectively a skill triggers procs (or effects that have a small chance to activate).  Many skills (like Magic Missile) have a proc coefficient of 1. Skills that hit multiple targets or pulse multiple times have lower proc coefficients. 

In the case of Energy Twister, specifically Wicked Wind, the 0.25 proc coefficient causes the skill to generate more procs in a given time period than any other skill.  Currently, this is used in combination with Critical Mass to lower the cooldown on skills like Frost Nova and Diamond Skin.  By reducing the proc coefficient from 0.25 to 0.125, the build still works and remains fairly strong, but it won’t be quite as good as it is now.  (For those with extremely high Crit rates, you may not even notice much difference, but I wanted to call it out anyway. )

Originally, we weren’t going to make this change, but 1.0.4 also brings with it a number of new Legendary items, and many of them have phenomenal new proc effects.  If we left high proc coefficients as they were, then a handful of skills with higher coefficients would become the de facto choice to use with these sexy new items.  We were faced with a choice: we could either reduce the proc coefficient, or we could make it so these skills could not trigger the procs on Legendary items at all.  We opted for the former because it seemed like getting a Legendary with a proc effect but never seeing it trigger would be very disappointing.  Regardless, having well-balanced proc coefficients on all skills is not only better for Legendaries, but also for the game in the long term.

RIP Windup Wizard.

Although it may seem a huge nerf at first, it might not matter much given sufficient crit rate and the right legendaries considering the amazing new proc effects.

Here's a high-dps variation of the Critical Mass / Energy Twister / Explosive Blast Windup Wizard build. It takes a total of 90s from loading into the Imperial Palace title at 0:43 to the kill flash at 2:13. And yes, there is a death during that minute and a half!

This is a comparable time to this video of Athene's Demon Hunter which is the fastest I found on YouTube. His time is 5s longer at 95s using the Imperial Palace/kill flash at 0:06 and 1:41 as boundaries.

Build

Defensive skills are out, so no Energy Armor or Teleport. They're replaced with two DPS buffs, Force Weapon and Dartling Familiar. Mirror Skin is used rather than the more defensive Crystal Shell to reflect damage back. For passives, Critical Mass is joined by Cold Blood and Glass Cannon. Buffed DPS is 68k.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VSYXhj!gWY!YZcbcZ

Gear

Unstable Anomaly

"It takes perfect concentration for a wizard to dance on the edge of infinity. Never be the one to break that concentration." —One-Eye Whipple

The Windup build encourages aggressive play on the precipice of huge kills versus complete failure while surrounded by big packs of enemies in order to keep the combo going.

In testing build variations for Inferno Act 4 death always occured when overwhelmed without time to respond, either due to the Teleport cooldown being a few tenths of a second away or server lag. This gave me the idea to try a new passive, Unstable Anomaly, that allows an automatic knockback to all enemies once every 60 seconds if life drops below 20%.

This turned out to be a fun choice that matches with the "infinity edge dance" flavor of the build. You can see this in action at 3:40 in the video where it offers a clutch save from near-certain death.

Gear Switch for Izual

If you don't have CC reduction while battling Izual you'll be frozen constantly. He'll go down quicker if you switch out a piece of gear for decreased control impairment. The optimal piece to combine with Dark Mage's Shade is the fairly inexpensive Gladiator Gauntlets. In playtesting gear variations in Acts 2 & 3 the Gauntlets are strong all-around if used instead of opting for CC reduction in the helm or with a slower weapon that gets less twisters off before CC impairing effects kick back in.

Oops

There's one death during the Shadow Clone phase. I made the mistake of deciding to teleport away and kite her. The far better option is to go right up and aggressively facesmash as you would for any other enemy as shown in the 2nd attempt.

Frozen Fast Shielding Teleporter

The shielding Hell Witches that start at 2:05 were the toughest battle. I ended up pulling them towards more mobs to Windup on while sticking close to them for Frost/Blast with Teleport because I couldn't get enough Wicked Wind crits in with them constantly shielding or teleporting. 

Build

Energy Twister / Wicked Wind, Diamond Skin / Crystal Shell, Frost Nova / Bone Chill, Explosive Blast / Chain Reaction, Teleport / Fracture, Energy Armor / Prismatic Armor, Critical Mass, Unstable Anomaly, Temporal Flux

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VOYXhQ!hgU!.ccacY

Here's the Critical Mass Melee Wizard Windup build taking on the Siegebreaker quest in Act 3 Inferno from start to finish with all five elite packs and the Siege Engine kill in 7 minutes and 41 seconds.

Key Spells

Energy Twister / Frost Nova / Critical Mass / Explosive Blast / Teleport

Build

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VOYXhQ!Ugb!YccacY

Oops

There's one death from an overly-aggressive teleport into the middle of an Illusionist pack with Fire Chains. The Unstable Anomaly passive in place of Temporal Flux would have saved me, so it's worth exploring as a build option. 

Passives & Runes

Glass Cannon is an option but my eHP is too low to reliably survive. It could be used with perfect play. I attempted the run several times with Teleport/Wormhole rather than Fracture in hopes of crossing the board quicker but the trailing crowd distraction with duplicates turned out much stronger.  Evocation is used as damage output is constrained by the already short cooldowns, so global 15% reduced cooldowns allows damage to get through faster. 

This is a speedrun for the Breached Keep quest in Inferno Act 3 with a melee Wizard windup build killing all nine elite/champ packs along with Ghom in 13 minutes. The tempo of this build shines during this style of play with crowd control, damage output and map advancement allowing for quick farming.

Skills are Energy Twister/Wicked Wind, Energy Armor/Prismatic Armor, Frost Nova/Bone Chill, Diamond Skin/Crystal Shell, Explosive Blast/Chain Reaction and Teleport/Fracture. Runes are Temporal Flux, Critical Mass and Cold Blooded.

This run can be improved with better map prediction and without stopping for loot. There is one death.

Teleport is used defensively several times to reposition away from elemental affixes but its primary use is to jump through trash mobs and position during battle for enhanced damage by pulling mobs together and centering between them for Explosive Blast as well as reengaging quickly after knockback.

For quests with open spaces like Siegebreaker the Wormhole rune for Teleport is stronger than Fracture but within the tight confines of the Keeps Depths there is no advantage and trailing duplicates help distract trash mobs while pushing forward.

Challenge

The gauntlet is thrown! I challenge other classes and builds to beat 13 minutes on this challenge.

Rules

1. Start the timer by accepting the Breached Keep quest and end the timer on the checkpoint after Ghom.
2. Beat all elites and champs encountered on the way to Ghom.

The Build

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#VOYXhQ!aXg!YcYacY

How it works

The passive Critical Mass gives a chance for a one second cooldown reduction each time you make a critical hit. With Wicked Wind you can proc critical hits consistently, giving huge cooldown reductions to Frost Nova, Explosive Blast and Teleport.

Why Windup? 

As you battle increasing numbers of enemies, the tempo of your casting accelerates or "winds up" with this build. You'll hear this in the sound effects for Explosive Blast and Energy Twister that increase in frequency as more creatures join. It's also a play on words. The first step in every battle is casting Wicked Wind and your main priority throughout battle is keeping the Wind up for cooldown reductions, +Arcane Power on crit hits and Life on Hit.

The 650k Inferno Act 1 Build

EHP Calculator

http://rubensayshi.github.com/d3-ehp-calculator/#calculator/81fc3db8-9525-8118-aced-325aab92148a

Necessary Gear

The minimum essential stats for this build in Inferno Act 1 are around 30% crit rate, 1.65 attack speed, +25 Arcane Power on Crit and 150 Life on Hit. You can trade lower AP on crit and slower attack speed for a higher crit rate, offering a wide range of gear choices.

Playstyle

Groups

You can  tank, crowd control and DPS with one build. Two huge groups hitting from different sides? With this build take control of both simultenously. Teleport between them as you alternate freezes on each, and your explosive blasts follows you around as you land. Is a DH or Wiz glass cannon in your group in trouble with a runaway mob? Port to them, freeze the straggler and teleport back to the main tanking group.

Solo Speed Runs

The tempo accelerates as long as you keep damage constant, encouraging chaining between groups of mobs instead of stopping to pick up loot. Shred through mobs by using teleport offensively like a Barbarian would use Leap to close the gap to the next group.  You can prep the next group with remote Wicked Wind casts while working on the current group. There is no downtime if you focus on winding up the next group while freezing and blasting the current.  You can aim for huge chains of kills this way. Five to six groups in a row with 100+ kills is not unusaul, with practice this could go sky high as long as more mobs are always within casting range of the current group.

Optimal Damage Output

You'll get the most damage from explosive blast if you teleport directly into the center of a big monster. For a group of smaller mobs that are frozen, teleport/run into the frozen pack and re-freeze/blast after the first Frost Nova has set them up.

A Wizard Build that Actually Feels Like a Wizard Build

The playstle is akin to an aggressive blue control deck in Magic: The Gathering because you focus on neutralizing the largest threat first and exerting board control on the rest while pegging for consistent damage throughout. Most of the time you'll completely lock down your enemies but you're always on the thrilling precipice of huge kills or massive failure while standing in the thick of a crowd.  If you get in trouble, teleport defensively instead of pushing forward. It's an exciting and versatile build that plays much differently than DPS/kiting or Spectral Blade and Meteor melee builds.

Smashing Elites, and the Downsides

Most elite groups are a cakewalk. The ones that will give you problems in ascending order of annoyance are Fire Chains, Frozen, Invunerable Minions, Knockback, Nightmarish and Shielding. But who doesn't have problems with those? Elemental affixes are trivial as you can teleport away or continue damage by popping diamond skin under the arcane laser/jailer-molten. Your Teleport, Diamond Skin and Frost Nova will be ready every 2s or quicker. 

Optimal Weapon or "Wizardspike: Finally, a Real Legendary!"

You can save gold on gear by using a Wand instead of a Wizardspike dagger, but the 1.58 speed versus 1.4 for wands lets you react faster to threats and increases the tempo, utility and fun. Wizardspike is the only non-Wand in the game with the essential +AP on crit stat.  You're not aiming for huge burst damage, your goal is to push out consistent damage while exerting board control. This is particularly important for affixes like frozen, shielding and nightmare when the windup process doesn't accelerate as normal but instead speeds up and slows down as your Twisters dissipate before you are able to recast them due to control impairing effects, or they stop proccing critical mass because of no damage in the case of shielding. A slow wand makes this worse. You want to cast as many Twisters as possible before control impairing effects kick back in.  This becomes more important as you progress through Acts II, III and IV when those affixes pop up more frequently on elite mobs.

As such, CC reduction is an important stat and it should be one of the first upgrades to the 650k gear example. CC reduction is even more important with a wand since you'll have less chances to cast when you return from being feared or frozen. With a socketed Wizardspike you can increase your damage output substantially as you farm through the acts by upgrading the Emerald for bonus critical hit damage due to the huge number of critical hits. For a more defensive/cheaper build, Wizardspikes can roll up to ~1500 Life After Kill rather than a socket. 

Optimal Helm or "Wait, Another Useful Legendary?"

On the CC reduction note, the level 59 Dark Mage's Shade works better than the godliest ilvl 63 helm in Act III and Act IV. It is the only helm in the game with a mix of int, vit, crit %, +AP on crit, CC reduction and socket. What's more, all six of those are stats are available alongside a bonus to the critical hit chance of Explosive Blast.

Gear Upgrades from Act 1 to 4

The build starts in Inferno Act 1 with a mixture of medium range stats on all gear, meaning upgrades throughout Inferno can be choosen from a wide range of categories with a very measured approach rather than paying ridiculous amounts to specialize in one stat.

Damage Increase

To output more damage look for upgrades to crit damage, crit %, IAS, +AP on crit and int.

Defensive Increase

If you have trouble staying alive focus on vit, AR, crit %, LOH and IAS.

Godly Engame Gear

Windup scales perfectly through all acts of Inferno. Here's endgame gear plowing through Act 3 Siegebreaker with Teleport replaced with Force Weapon:

UPDATE: There is some great additional feedback on Reddit. I'm working on an updated post with info on weapon and build variations for both the beginner and endgame build after I finish playtesting them.