As a wizard, you will have to lower defence, of course. But it’s not terrible given that you can reach 25%+ damage absorption, immunity window, teleport. Still, high Def and armor is possible. Here’s what I found 2 days ago - a single item gives 10% defence and 4-5% armor.
Though it’s a necro set, both your wizard and my conqueror (Oathkeeper + Barbarian) can benefit from it greatly. A lot of mid-endgame gear gives you good stats and I’m fairly certain you will be able to reach 3k+ def. It’s not all about str and dex, devotions and gear help a lot.
This item, once I was able to craft it, basically turned my char into an unkillable tank.
Massive def and armor bonuses, even though it doesn’t help my dps, but better safe than sorry right?
When it comes to endgame Grim Dawn, it can be very punishing for glassy builds in HC. The main problem is that you can’t always predict insane spikes of incoming damage which comes in the form of multiple debuffs + unique boss attacks, ground effects, etc. You can literally get oneshot if the boss crits you while debuffed. This is why I’d always use a tanky build first to explore the game and then go glassy when I have a better idea of the extreme dangers. For example, my first RIP in this mod was the act 1 secret boss which basically oneshot me instantly. Now I know what areas to avoid lol.