Man, I feel totally the opposite. I feel like Wizards are in one of the best spots considering they have multiple T6 capable builds. I've seen Archon of different elements, MM conflag with a bunch of variations, and both arcane and fire variations of explosive blast builds all working fine on T6. I'd kill for that kind of variety on my Barbarian.
I mean, I agree firebirds should still be fixed but shit, Wizard is in a pretty good place overall.
T6? Wizards have variety but not quality. Many classes both outdamage Wizards and are more survivable. WD, CRU, DH outdamage full fire stacked Wizard and Vyr Wizard. I don't know much about Barbarians, but the ones I've seen are very durable and do a good amount of damage. Even Monk seems to be in a decent place with the recent set changes, though I haven't seen one in action lately.
T5 is alright as a Wizard with some consistent problems, especially ranged (skeleton archers), anything like Exarchs, or any of the big smashers. At T6, it's much more problematic as Wizard is fragile and breaks easily. I'm not sure T6 is really worth running for anyone, though, outside WD/CRU.
The exception is a Wand of Woh wizard, but that's not a reality for most players. 400 hours and I've never seen one. I could easily go another 400 hours and not see one. It's that rare, and as such is not a realistic build for the vast majority of players.
That leaves most late game Wizards as either fire stack or Vyr. Fire stack requires the head, chest, glove, bracer, ring, and amulet slots, and probably the weapon as well. Realistically, a Wizard could have either Blackthorne immunity (belt, leg, boots) or Ice Climbers and the 2 set bonus from BT (+/- 10 elite) as well as Aughild's (+/- 15 elite). Most items are going to aim for CC, CHD, and element so HP is going to be around 400-500k, armor around 8000 (approx 78-80% reduc) and 1450 resists (78-80% reduc), with a little more here and there. Also throw in the 17% damage reduction from Blur. Even so, Wizard does not have the innate 30% damage reduction of Monks or Barbarians, nor anything as effective as WD's lifelink dogs coupled to Uthkapian Serpent. With fire stacking, Mirrorball, and Archon, the Wizard will be hitting about 10 or so million per MM (1.2-1.3 atk per sec), 30-45 mil on explosive blast or more on meteor, and 50-60 with Archon smashes. That's good but not great, and very fragile.
Vyr is either going to stack cooldown up to about 70% for short downtime (10s, requiring Born's / Captain Crimson in 4 slots, Aughild's moves to helm and bracer, and thus loss of 15-20% element from helm), in which case the Archon is rather weak and hits for 25-35 million or so (only slightly more effective than full element MM Wizard), or it's going to be strong with long downtime (30s) and will hit more like 50-60. You could also throw Blackthorne's or Ice Climbers in there at the cost of cooldown or element damage. Honestly, Vyr isn't comparable to what the top end classes are doing, and the survivability bonus in the Archon form (increases armor and resists by 20%, plus the slowdown bubble) is not enough to roll through really tough rifts without multiple deaths, though it does help with trash such as ranged skeletons. Oh, one more thing about Vyr: it's really either Arcane or Fire, due to the good quality elemental bonus items available for those, such as Moonlight Ward and Gesture of Orpheus. Cold and Lightning are viable but not as good due to the lack of items like Moonlight Ward.
Again, there are ultra-rare item builds, like Woh wizard and Rimeheart/Frostburn shatter, but these are unrealistic for most normal players. However, if you can find a Wand of Woh, it is WD levels of sick damage. There is also a type of support type stun lightning Wizard with Velvet Camaral + Myken's Ball of Hate, but it's more a curiosity, a trick, rather than a highly effective build.
Wizards aren't as terrible as Monks were, but they're still second class citizens, imo. I follow around WD and Cru and, despite having every Wizard item (minus Woh) with excellent rolls, am heavily outdamaged with consistent deaths. DH also outdamage and Barbs survive much better and do good damage with leapquake builds. I can't say much about Monk damage, but they're great to have around and die rarely.
Wizards are fun but I think there is still a "pre 2.0" misconception about how well they perform in the game. T4 is where I think Wizards top out in group settings, though they can run T5 and contribute to the party. At that point I'd rather have one of the other classes around, though, including Monks with their excellent support abilities. Solo is a little different, as monster damage is not as frightening.
