Laser wire-directed energy deposition (LWDED) is a specially designed wire deposition process that uses a high-intensity laser beam as a source for the fabrication of bulk and free-form components. The laser beam creates a melt pool on the substrate into which the molten wire is fed to form the deposition track. This process finds wide applications for component development and restoration in the aerospace, biomedical, marine, energy, and automotive sectors. Coaxial LWDED is highly flexible for free-form deposition with uniform energy distribution across the deposits, diminishing microstructural, geometrical, and mechanical defects. Despite the listed advantages, defects like stubbing, dripping, and burning can occur at specific combinations of laser power, scan speed, and wire feed rate. An autonomous, flexible, and state-of-the-art wire feeding setup has been developed in the Machine Tools lab at IIT Bombay and integrated with a coaxial wire laser deposition head on a robot. This paper primarily focuses on deposition characterization and defect mitigation in WLDED of AISI 304. The wire feeder setup employs a highly optimized actuated roller engagement mechanism. To investigate the WLDED process on the in-house developed system, single track depositions of AISI 304 stainless steel wire (1.2 mm diameter) on an AISI 304 substrate have been carried out at varying laser power (1200 W to 2000 W with an increment of 400 W) and scan speed (16 mm/s to 20 mm/s with the increment of 2 mm/s). A comprehensive geometrical characterization in terms of deposition height, deposition width, deposit area, contact angle, and percentage dilution has been conducted. The dilution depth, percentage dilution, and deposition width increase with an increase in the laser power. Conversely, an increase in the scan speed reduces the dilution and the melt width due to lower linear energy density. Preferred acute contact angle (< 90°) values are obtained for all the deposition parameters. Interestingly, stubbing, dripping, and burning are functions of linear energy density. Stubbing occurs at low power and high scan speeds due to insufficient energy density, resulting in incomplete melting of the fed wire, whereas dripping occurs at high laser powers and low speeds due to excessive melting. Consequently, the detrimental defects can be avoided by operating at medium scanning speed and laser power. All these results indicate successful integration of in-house developed coaxial LWDED setup with sound deposits. Microstructure variations obtained using the electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique exhibit directional solidification of columnar grain for all process parameters. Grain structure variation shows a transition from fine to coarse columnar grains with increased energy density. In addition, the linear energy density also affects the microhardness of the deposits. An increase in microhardness from 193.2 HV0.2 to 200.6 HV0.2 is observed if the linear energy density is decreased from 111 J/mm – 66.7 J/mm, which could be attributed to the formation of finer grains at lower linear energy densities. Geometrical, microstructural, and microhardness results have identified 1600 W and 18 mm/s as the optimal parameter combination. Finally, a process map has been developed that clearly identifies the optimal deposition and defect regimes. These process maps can be potentially deployed in standard industrial practice for mitigating stubbing and dripping defects in WLDED, which is one of the major impediments to the widespread adoption of WLDED.