05-18-2012, 12:37 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-18-2012, 12:49 PM by Skandranon.)
In the fine tradition of the Lurker Lounge and me posting things on it, I thought I would just briefly go over my experience of the Wizard so far. I'm just going to attach some thoughts to each ability and rune thereof that I have currently had some personal experience with. There's obviously some bias in that I've chosen to play my Wizard in a very traditional glass cannon damage-dealer style. I don't know if any other style is possible, but I've allowed for the possibility. I just won't know too much about it. I'll update this as I play with other possibilities and discover new things.
Part 1, Signature spells
Magic Missile, Charged Blast:
Solid enough starting ability. Straight line, hits one target. The real version that's worth talking about is Charged Blast, which delivers a reasonable chunk of damage at range. As a Signature spell this is always going to be a secondary ability, since you will always want to frontload Arcane Power consuming abilities at the start of a fight in order to take advantage of its rapid regeneration. In essence, Arcane Power is the "cooldown" restricting uses of your most powerful abilities, and Signature abilities are merely fillers in your rotation. I find that this is the best of the bunch.
Split:
You gain 7% weapon damage at the cost of possibly having some of those projectiles intercepted by other things. For single-boss encounters this is okay, but you sort of have to know when those are coming up to make the switch.
Penetrating Blast:
Gives this spell a slight AoE capability in straight lines. This is actually not a bad shape at all, but the Wizard's arsenal is replete with AoE abilities. It is tough single targets that the Wizard struggles against, and this doesn't really do much for that.
Shock Pulse, Fire Bolts:
Its unpredictable nature and short range make Shock Pulse impossible to use at any longer than medium range, but the tradeoff is a lot more damage than Magic Missile and at least at the start of the game, this tradeoff is definitely worth it. Fire Bolts increase the damage but retain the base spell's drawbacks, which become increasingly more significant as you progress in the game.
Explosive Bolts:
Reliable screen-clearer for all of Normal difficulty while soloing. Loses some of its appeal in higher difficulties (when standing close enough to Shock Pulse is not a great idea) and multiplayer (when you are not certain to be killing every enemy). If you're soloing or duoing, though, this utterly ruins large packs of weaker mobs without even having to use any other ability.
Piercing Orb:
The orb moves forward in an exaggerated S-shape. The curves are very large and unpredictable, which means it retains the disadvantage of possibly not hitting what you aim at. It gives up three bolts of 105% damage for one orb of that much damage, essentially cutting the output of this spell in half (making some generous assumptions). On the upside, it at least gains range out to the edges of the screen. At this level I found that there were easily better options.
Spectral Blade, Deep Cuts:
For the description "any enemies in your path", I was greatly disappointed to learn that this is a melee range ability that hits a fairly tiny AoE directly in front of you. In addition to that, the damage is not spectacular. Given how I built my Wizard (more on that later) a melee-range ability is completely out of the question. Perhaps a more sturdily built Wizard might be able to use this ability, but such a build would be even more desperate to get the damage that this ability lacks. Deep Cuts retains all the disadvantages for a fairly minor DoT.
Impactful Blades:
The knockback is nice as an emergency saver, but the percentage chance is just too low, and honestly ability slots are far too valuable to waste on skills with only emergency use.
Siphoning Blades:
Against a base regeneration of 10 or 12 per second, restoring 1 Arcane Power per enemy hit while requiring the use of the unimproved Spectral Blades ability is too steep a trade to make.
Electrocute, Chain Lightning:
Long range filler ability. Electrocute fires anywhere you can click, and while the damage is low it has the ability to hit multiple targets even without a rune. Chain Lightning gives it even more of that ability and seems to extend the jump range a little as well. I would love Electrocute if it wasn't horribly bugged; although the tooltip claims it does 80% weapon damage, it actually does 40% weapon damage, which just doesn't measure up.
Forked Lightning:
At least to this point in the game, my critical chance hasn't budged from its base 5%. That is a 5% chance to proc 4 bolts, only one of which might maybe hit something. Not good enough.
Lightning Blast:
A huge fast-firing projectile that auto-pierces and has range out to the edge of the screen. If only it actually did good damage.
Part 2, Secondary abilities:
Ray of Frost, Snow Blast, Cold Blood:
This is one of the only Wizard spells which is really focused on being single-target, and it's the best at it. I admit I haven't given Ray of Frost as much testing as it probably deserves, mostly because its base form is so underwhelming. You generally want your Arcane Power consuming abilities to be your AoE answers, and because Ray of Frost is so resolutely not AoE (in its ray form, at least), it becomes difficult to justify it for anything that isn't a single target boss encounter. Problematically, single target boss encounters typically require you to be running all the time, which doesn't make standing in one spot channeling a spell very easy. By Act 4 Nightmare or later, ray-type spells are almost completely outclassed unless you can somehow figure out how to stand still long enough to cast them. You can do this for normal packs, but almost anything suffices for them, and anything genuinely threatening will not allow you the luxury of standing still.
Numb:
This might actually help with the "I have to stand still to cast it, but this guy is charging me" situation. For most open-world cases this does not help at all since the thing you don't want charging you has other champions in its pack, or a cloud of minions. I can think of a handful of cases where this could be useful, though. I'll be sure to try this out when I get there again.
Sleet Storm:
It replaces the ray and is pretty small for a storm. This is a PBAoE melee attack. I do not go in for melee attacks of any kind. Again, maybe a more tanky Wizard could make use of this, but judging from the damage I see handed out in the higher difficulties I have my doubts that any Wizard could ever stand up to enough hits to make this useful.
Arcane Orb, Obliteration, Arcane Nova, Tap the Source:
Fantastic fire-and-forget type Arcane Power consumer, which, despite its 10 yard explosion radius, also makes this one of the best AP powers for single-target boss fights, since you can just chuck a few at the boss on the run. The radius is sizable so it's usable out in the open world as well. Obliteration raises all damage done by a respectable amount. Arcane Nova raises the area, and Tap the Source allows you to fire off more orbs per unit of time, as well as getting you excellent efficiency per AP spent. The great virtue of Arcane Orb is that it's incredibly flexible. In the open world it mows down packs, in running battles it delivers probably the best damage on the go, in single target boss battles the damage is respectable. There's nothing it can't do, which is a good thing considering the deficiencies of many other AP powers.
Arcane Orbit:
Again designed for the possible tanky Wizard build, but if you're going to do that, just use Sleet Storm. There isn't enough AP to support them both.
Arcane Torrent:
A theoretically powerful AoE and single-target ability hamstrung by various disadvantages. The AoE is small, and like the ray abilities it requires that you stand still and channel to launch projectiles. To add to this, the projectile speed is slow and they are always aimed at a spot on the ground, even if you target an enemy. As the difficulty ramps up, fights are more and more on the move, which makes it harder and harder for Arcane Torrent to actually hit anything. In theory, if left unmolested, like in some multiplayer situations, the damage potential is high. I haven't seen it.
Disruption:
Essentially just raises Arcane Torrent's damage. There's some synergy potential here with other Wizards, maybe.
Death Blossom:
At no point do I find not controlling where my projectiles go to be a worthwhile trade, even for huge damage. They spray out randomly in a 360 degree arc while you still have to stand still and channel the spell. Perhaps useful if you are surrounded, but if you are surrounded you have much bigger things to worry about.
Disintegrate, Convergence:
The other ray spell in the Wizard's arsenal. I loved it and used it for as long as I could just because it was a giant death laser. Disintegrate does slightly less damage than Ray of Frost, but it has the huge advantage of piercing, so it damages everything it goes through and has respectable range to boot. Especially while soloing, the most common enemy formation is a line (more of an elongated ovoid, but line-ish enough) so Disintegrate typically attacks the entire enemy formation at once for heavy damage. Convergence adds a second beam that makes it even more effective at wrecking the enemy ovoid. For single targets this is directly inferior to Ray of Frost, having all the disadvantages and no appreciable advantage that I can see. Unfortunately, as higher difficulties become more and more running battles, Disintegrate becomes less and less applicable. It's doable so long as you have someone to tank for you, but anything anyone can tank isn't a threat, and as the boss modifiers pile up there will just be too many threats at range for you to ever cast a ray.
Chaos Nexus:
A powerful addition that attacks enemies (and pots, stumps, coffins, destructible architecture) that come as close as medium range with additional beams with respectable damage. If your main Disintegrate target is within this medium range it will take damage from both beams, putting Disintegrate's single target damage nearly up to Ray of Frost's. It extends Disintegrate's flexibility substantially. It doesn't, however, make it not a ray, which means that this doesn't make it any better on higher difficulties.
Volatility:
For early soloing this could be good in the same way that Explosive Bolts is good. In a multiplayer setting it happens too rarely to be of any value. And this also doesn't make it not a ray.
Entropy:
Disintegrate's range and piercing are probably two of its best attributes. Entropy takes them away, attaching all the disadvantages of a ray to a short-range fan. At the level you acquire this you will never use it.
Part 3, Defensive abilities:
Frost Nova, Cold Snap:
So far as I can tell nothing is immune to freeze, not even bosses, making this a very solid panic button. As difficulty ramps up, crowd control like this becomes even more significant. I do not currently use this but have been considering it more of late.
Shatter:
Against waves of small enemies this can keep them all locked up in frost while you kill them. At higher difficulties, increased enemy hp makes it less likely that you can chain novas back to back.
Frozen Mist:
The entire appeal of this ability is that it freezes things. Not freezing things just makes this a very poor damage spell.
Diamond Skin, Crystal Shell:
Powerful defensive ability that comes up twice as often as potions, but its limited duration makes it hard to use. Can be a definite lifesaver on higher difficulties and until you've achieved perfection in dodging all of the random things that boss mobs like to throw at you, this will always be useful, since you will always be taking a lot of damage one way or another.
Prism:
Reducing cost by 7 allows you to pop Diamond Skin and then powerfully front-load AP consuming powers, increasing the flexibility of Diamond Skin by making it applicable to every situation. With only six bar slots, you want the most flexible, generally applicable abilities in those slots. That's a good recommendation for Prism.
Mirror Skin:
Iffy on this one. Given the observed damage outputs and mob hp numbers, it doesn't make sense to put this on just to get hit. That isn't that much damage compared to mob hp, and if you get hit you probably want the extra protection from Crystal Shell, or the AP benefit from Prism if you happen to be able to not get hit.
Slow Time:
The bubble just goes up around you. This does let you get away, but it buys you a handful of seconds at best. The better use is for projectile deflection, as projectiles are very damaging in D3. Slowing them by 90% buys you a few moments to stand still and cast when being shot at. The main issue with this is flexibility, the same thing that works so well in Diamond Skin's favor. There will always be something for Diamond Skin to be useful for. Not so much Slow Time. It is possible on Hell difficulty that Diamond Skin may not be enough, and that Slow Time may be the only actual answer to projectiles.
Miasma, Time Warp, Time Shell:
All of these things debuff enemies in the bubble. If an enemy is close enough to you to be in the bubble, none of these things will be very helpful. Miasma is somewhat useful for kiting, which is sort of what happens in multiplayer when things go bad. I would imagine on higher difficulties, Slow Time-Miasma kiting might be the only way to get damage done, but I feel there are better options at that time.
Teleport, Safe Passage:
Just not as awesome as D1/2 teleport. The hefty cooldown, combined with the fact that you don't really want to be hopping through dungeons anyway (not that you could), relegates Teleport to escape panic button only, and frankly it's not a good one. It buys you a few seconds, but so do all of the other defensive abilities, and all the others buy you some time to shoot back, which Teleport doesn't. Where Safe Passage is concerned, you probably shouldn't be teleporting into places where you are going to still take damage. Sometimes you can't help it, but that just makes me wish I had Diamond Skin instead.
Wormhole:
The 1sec cooldown doesn't reset with subsequent teleports, so you can't use this to hop across the map. You can pull off three, maybe four teleports, at the outside, within the 1 second window. This may or may not let you completely disengage from mobs; I haven't tried it. If it does that it's probably a hardcore must.
Reversal:
This is actually built for offensive teleporting combined with melee range abilities. I have not yet found anything that I want to do that with, especially not a build that can afford to use a slot on Teleport, but I find the concept intriguing.
Part 4, Force abilities:
Wave of Force, Force Affinity:
This is a decent panic button. It doesn't buy you much time at all, but it makes up for it by also supplying its own damage, which is what you'd want to use that time for anyway. So far I wound up taking it off my bars when I realized just how infrequently I was using it, but it might make a comeback in higher difficulties. It would make an interesting combo with Teleport Reversal, although you can probably get the same damage in a less risky and cheaper way with other abilities.
Impactful Wave, Forceful Wave:
Buys you even more time, or more damage and less time. Overall I think I prefer the extra time. 60% weapon damage isn't enough to compensate for the reduced knockback.
Teleporting Wave:
I am at a loss to see how this benefits you in any way.
Energy Twister, Mistral Breeze, Gale Force:
Garbage. Not only does the twister move in a genuinely unpredictable path, meaning not even in any particular direction consistently, but the listed damage is if the enemy is in contact with the twister for all six seconds of its duration – yet it probably won't, since no enemy follows the bizarre paths it takes, and it even seems like the twister pushes the enemy away so that it won't. It actually does only 60% weapon damage per second and is likely to hit just once – this is as much damage as most abilities do on their secondary enhancements, not their main value. I have rarely managed to get any significant damage with this spell, and as Mistral Breeze and Gale Force don't modify these parts of the spell, they don't help it at all.
Raging Storm:
I have not tried this but I can say for certain that there's no way to collide two twisters on any kind of a consistent basis. Even if they do the payoff is the same 60% weapon damage per second. Unspectacular to say the least.
Hydra, Arcane Hydra, Lightning Hydra:
Interesting because you can fire and forget it and it will attack on the move. The downside is that even with runes the damage is very low. Another skill I haven't played with maybe as often as I should have. Definitely some potential for kiting.
Venom Hydra:
I feel like the pools of acid this leaves are contrary to the valuable things about Hydra, in that you and the enemies can be moving and Hydra still helps you out. I could be wrong.
Meteor, Molten Impact, Star Pact, Comet:
I really wanted to love Meteor, but the cost to damage ratio is actually quite poor, even with Molten Impact. Again, with the greater mobility of fights, it's harder to land meteors successfully. Even if you do place one and lure some enemies into it, you're never assured of hitting exactly what you want. Arcane Orb is generally just better – with Obliteration it hits for nearly as much for nearly half the cost, and being a projectile, if the enemy keeps moving toward you it'll hit them at some point, while you can still cleanly miss a Meteor with bad timing. The delay before it drops makes for tricky timing and in a higher-difficulty boss fight, you do not want to burden yourself with another complex task.
Meteor Swarm:
The meteors fall in completely random formations. Fun to look at but unreliable and it still has that killer delay.
Blizzard:
Very low damage for a sizable cost. 210% damage over 6 seconds works out to 35% a second, and again the enemies may not be in the Blizzard for the entire duration. That said, it does snare all enemies in it, even if it doesn't mention that, and it takes effect immediately, so for extended kiting it is far more reliable than Meteor. The slow also makes it somewhat better than Arcane Orb for this purpose.
Grasping Chill:
Somewhat useful if you're kiting large packs. I have not encountered this situation yet but I'm aware that this is a very likely situation to happen in higher difficulties. The slow might combine well in multiplayer with other more damaging abilities, such as other Wizards using Arcane Torrent or Disintegrate.
Frozen Solid:
Randomly freezing enemies is not of particular benefit. It is the leading enemy that is of concern, and with only a 20% chance, all it means is that frozen enemies will be left a little behind (but they'll catch up).
Snowbound:
Now this actually is useful. With the right abilities you can carpet the entire battlefield in Blizzards constantly. Although this is using up your AP to do very little damage, it's hard to understate the value of making sure that you and your allies are always faster than the opposition. One of the biggest problems with the running battles that ensue when nobody in your party can take a hit from a mob is that they are often the same speed or faster than you are, limiting your engagement window. Blizzard may kill them slower, but it also may enable allies to kill them faster and keep everyone safe to boot.
Part 5, Conjuration abilities:
Ice Armor, Chilling Aura:
Solid defensive buff spell. Anything attacking you gets frozen, buying you precious time to get clear. This works on a surprising number of bosses, at least in Normal. Another huge kiting aid, making sure that once you get caught, at least you don't stay caught. Chilling Aura is a big enhancement, slowing anything that approaches and making it even easier to stay out of harm's way. Still useful in higher difficulties although the predominance of ranged threats makes it less than optimal.
Crystallize:
An Armor increase of 15% isn't as great as it sounds. It probably translates to another 5% or so damage reduction, but this might be what a tanky build needs to succeed. I wouldn't know.
Storm Armor, Reactive Armor, Strike Back, Jagged Ice:
This is an offensive spell masquerading as an armor. To get full use out of it, it requires that you be able to take hits already. I'm lumping in Ice Armor's Jagged Ice rune since it's the same thing and equally useless. Even 100% weapon damage is not a good trade for being hit, and you're better off with an ability on your bar that actually kills them much faster than this or helps you stay alive.
Power of the Storm:
An interesting ability that I've thought about playing with. Unlike the reduction from Prism, this will be up all the time. This can make ray spells sustainable for a long period of time – of course, in order to be casting said ray spell long enough, or to need it for that long, you'll be playing multiplayer, and on the lower difficulties at that. It could combo well with Tap the Source to launch even more orbs, but a big issue is that the base ability is not really worth having.
Magic Weapon:
Invaluable buff. This doesn't just enhance your base weapon damage, it is a straight multiplier on your damage done after all other modifiers have been applied. This results in a massive damage increase, over and above the listed value, and this increase translates to every single spell that depends on weapon damage, which is nearly all of them. The power of this combined with other similar Wizard abilities can stack firepower to a devastating degree. Unless I have to turn into a pure crowd controller in later difficulties, I cannot ever imagine myself not using this.
Electrify:
I thought I saw this triggering off spells but I wasn't looking that closely. If what I think I saw was this triggering, then the arc is not very large.
Force Weapon:
The knockback is basically never, but the 5% extra weapon damage translates to even more damage when multiplied with everything else.
Conduit:
Against 5% extra damage, a chance at 1 Arcane Power isn't that compelling. It can be used in concert with Power of the Storm to further extend ray spells, but I feel like past Normal I'm always moving, and hence regenerating AP, more than I'm just standing still blasting away.
Familiar, Dartling:
This isn't a full minion. As it is unable to be attacked by enemies, it also can't draw attention from you, and it only attacks while you're firing – if you're moving it won't shoot. Its damage is therefore pretty weak and generally cosmetic in nature. Dartling lets the shots pierce, which is a small bonus but not really noteworthy.
Sparkflint:
This is why I have Familiar on my bars. This is a 12% multiplier on all damage done that stacks multiplicatively with Magic Weapon and likewise occurs after other modifiers. Together, Force Weapon and Sparkflint increase damage done by 28.8%. That's really hard to pass up. It does result in a bar full of essentially passive abilities, but the bonus of having things that just increase your damage done is that you'll never not want it. When slots are limited, flexibility rules, and nothing is more flexible than “do more damage with everything”.
Energy Armor, Energy Tap:
65% sounds like a lot, but in practice this is at most another 12% or so less damage taken. It's helpful, but it has a serious drawback in reducing your max AP. Staying alive is important, but you do this in order to kill them faster. With Energy Tap this ability accomplishes both things at once and becomes quite useful. Note that Armor in D3 is damage reduction from everything, with physical-only reduction falling under the logical heading of Physical Resistance instead.
Absorption:
Random AP restoration when getting hit isn't really that valuable, especially since this rune keeps the AP penalty. There are better ways to get this effect.
Part 6, Mastery abilities:
Explosive Blast, Unleashed, Short Fuse:
This is a PBAoE with a built-in delay. Melee range makes it difficult to use. The delay and cooldown don't help either. Again, probably another tool for a more durable Wizard, if such a mythical object exists.
Time Bomb:
With the right timing this could be a fantastic kiting tool. The damage to AP ratio is actually quite good. It could potentially combine very well with Blizzard. I'm not sure it would see much use in multiplayer, but this and Blizzard with Grasping Chill are definitely on my list of things to try in Hell solo.
Mirror Image, Simulacrum, Duplicates:
A panic button that can actually take the heat off you completely for a little while. The problem is that the images do not taunt, so the enemies are not guaranteed to go for them, and that they buy so very little time. In a running battle you're much better off with Blizzard if you want to keep them off you, since that lets you do it constantly instead of buying maybe two out of every fifteen seconds.
Archon:
A devastating cooldown that can and should be unleashed on any kind of challenge. Upon learning this, I immediately put it on my bars and proceeded to melt two act bosses in under ten seconds each. Obviously it's become less effective in Nightmare, but it's still a gigantic damage boost. Transforming into the archon gives you a PBAoE burst for a fairly mediocre amount of damage, but also replaces your mouse skills with things that are much more impressive. Your left click becomes a melee attack that bursts in an area for 250% weapon damage, and your right becomes a Disintegrate dealing 300% weapon damage. Importantly, these attacks do not consume AP or any other resource, so you can cast through the full duration of the spell, which makes it an even bigger damage boost than it first appears. Sadly, even the Armor and Resistance boost doesn't make it tanky enough to survive high difficulty bosses, but I've popped it and gone out in a blaze of glory to successfully enable my team to get the win enough times that I'm still happy to have it on my bars.
Arcane Destruction:
In solo it's easy to take advantage of this by simply casting until you're swarmed, and then instead of retreating, using Archon. The armor and resistance boosts provided by Archon make this tactic usable even by super squishy wizards such as myself. It isn't the greatest rune, though, and in multiplayer it basically never does anything.
Archon Teleport:
So named to distinguish it from the skill. Deceptively powerful, since you want to cast as often as you can while being an archon, which is to say that you don't want to waste time repositioning should it become necessary. Teleport makes it easy.
Pure Power:
I think I would use this ability no matter what it actually did, but thankfully it's also quite good, letting you access powerful Archon goodness even more often.
Part 7, Passive abilities:
Blur:
Probably the foundational passive of any theoretical tank Wizard build. Not a part of my build because I am mostly threatened by projectiles, not melee (and the melee that does threaten me, like a charging champion pack, should be avoided or I get one-shot, not something Blur can affect). Still a powerful ability and never a bad call. I have been considering this more lately as I advance in difficulty.
Power Hungry:
Better than it first appears. I ran this for quite some time and found that at least in solo it allowed me to chain AP abilities together for a very long time. I've been considering it even for multiplayer, since globes picked up by party members heal you.
Evocation:
Obviously depends on your build. I find that with Diamond Skin and Archon, Evocation becomes a compelling alternative.
Glass Cannon:
The final stand of the Wizard passive damage tripod. Once again, the 15% here happens after other multipliers and stacks multiplicatively with Sparkflint and Magic Weapon. Together the three abilities raise your damage by 48.12%. And in return, reducing your armor and resistances by 10% is only another 2-3% damage taken. That's almost no trade at all.
Prodigy:
Useful but not outstanding. From what I can tell, it does not proc per target hit by a Signature spell; it merely asks, “did your spell damage something, yes/no” and restores 4 AP if the answer is yes. Of all the runes and passives that restore small amounts of AP, this is by far the best. That doesn't necessarily make it worth using, although I do use it to recharge in multiplayer. I'm still iffy on it.
Astral Presence:
I can't imagine not taking this for any Wizard. 20 extra AP and 2 more a second is good for anyone doing anything. Flexibility wins again.
Illusionist:
Not having used Mirror Image and Teleport much, I haven't used this either. I can see the potential, but that's about it.
Cold Blooded:
Weirdly specific. Essentially this is Blizzard comboing with itself and possibly with the Comet variation of Meteor. If it can be made to work for running battles this could be very valuable.
Conflagration:
There are only a handful of ways of dealing fire damage and none of them are really that good (Fire Bolts, Hydra, Meteor). I guess a fire wizard build could take advantage of this, but a fire wizard build would have a lot of other issues.
Paralysis:
Even at 8%, nothing about this is consistent. Stunning random mobs might actually hurt more than it helps.
Galvanizing Ward:
Passive self-healing. Not to be underestimated, especially with potions on a long cooldown and health globes not consistently available. That said, it's quite situational. Most encounters are easily survived and healed up afterward through globes. Those that don't generally won't be affected by a trickle of passive healing. Some of the Act bosses tend to be long multiple phase fights with very little available healing – this is where Galvanizing Ward shines.
Part 1, Signature spells
Magic Missile, Charged Blast:
Solid enough starting ability. Straight line, hits one target. The real version that's worth talking about is Charged Blast, which delivers a reasonable chunk of damage at range. As a Signature spell this is always going to be a secondary ability, since you will always want to frontload Arcane Power consuming abilities at the start of a fight in order to take advantage of its rapid regeneration. In essence, Arcane Power is the "cooldown" restricting uses of your most powerful abilities, and Signature abilities are merely fillers in your rotation. I find that this is the best of the bunch.
Split:
You gain 7% weapon damage at the cost of possibly having some of those projectiles intercepted by other things. For single-boss encounters this is okay, but you sort of have to know when those are coming up to make the switch.
Penetrating Blast:
Gives this spell a slight AoE capability in straight lines. This is actually not a bad shape at all, but the Wizard's arsenal is replete with AoE abilities. It is tough single targets that the Wizard struggles against, and this doesn't really do much for that.
Shock Pulse, Fire Bolts:
Its unpredictable nature and short range make Shock Pulse impossible to use at any longer than medium range, but the tradeoff is a lot more damage than Magic Missile and at least at the start of the game, this tradeoff is definitely worth it. Fire Bolts increase the damage but retain the base spell's drawbacks, which become increasingly more significant as you progress in the game.
Explosive Bolts:
Reliable screen-clearer for all of Normal difficulty while soloing. Loses some of its appeal in higher difficulties (when standing close enough to Shock Pulse is not a great idea) and multiplayer (when you are not certain to be killing every enemy). If you're soloing or duoing, though, this utterly ruins large packs of weaker mobs without even having to use any other ability.
Piercing Orb:
The orb moves forward in an exaggerated S-shape. The curves are very large and unpredictable, which means it retains the disadvantage of possibly not hitting what you aim at. It gives up three bolts of 105% damage for one orb of that much damage, essentially cutting the output of this spell in half (making some generous assumptions). On the upside, it at least gains range out to the edges of the screen. At this level I found that there were easily better options.
Spectral Blade, Deep Cuts:
For the description "any enemies in your path", I was greatly disappointed to learn that this is a melee range ability that hits a fairly tiny AoE directly in front of you. In addition to that, the damage is not spectacular. Given how I built my Wizard (more on that later) a melee-range ability is completely out of the question. Perhaps a more sturdily built Wizard might be able to use this ability, but such a build would be even more desperate to get the damage that this ability lacks. Deep Cuts retains all the disadvantages for a fairly minor DoT.
Impactful Blades:
The knockback is nice as an emergency saver, but the percentage chance is just too low, and honestly ability slots are far too valuable to waste on skills with only emergency use.
Siphoning Blades:
Against a base regeneration of 10 or 12 per second, restoring 1 Arcane Power per enemy hit while requiring the use of the unimproved Spectral Blades ability is too steep a trade to make.
Electrocute, Chain Lightning:
Long range filler ability. Electrocute fires anywhere you can click, and while the damage is low it has the ability to hit multiple targets even without a rune. Chain Lightning gives it even more of that ability and seems to extend the jump range a little as well. I would love Electrocute if it wasn't horribly bugged; although the tooltip claims it does 80% weapon damage, it actually does 40% weapon damage, which just doesn't measure up.
Forked Lightning:
At least to this point in the game, my critical chance hasn't budged from its base 5%. That is a 5% chance to proc 4 bolts, only one of which might maybe hit something. Not good enough.
Lightning Blast:
A huge fast-firing projectile that auto-pierces and has range out to the edge of the screen. If only it actually did good damage.
Part 2, Secondary abilities:
Ray of Frost, Snow Blast, Cold Blood:
This is one of the only Wizard spells which is really focused on being single-target, and it's the best at it. I admit I haven't given Ray of Frost as much testing as it probably deserves, mostly because its base form is so underwhelming. You generally want your Arcane Power consuming abilities to be your AoE answers, and because Ray of Frost is so resolutely not AoE (in its ray form, at least), it becomes difficult to justify it for anything that isn't a single target boss encounter. Problematically, single target boss encounters typically require you to be running all the time, which doesn't make standing in one spot channeling a spell very easy. By Act 4 Nightmare or later, ray-type spells are almost completely outclassed unless you can somehow figure out how to stand still long enough to cast them. You can do this for normal packs, but almost anything suffices for them, and anything genuinely threatening will not allow you the luxury of standing still.
Numb:
This might actually help with the "I have to stand still to cast it, but this guy is charging me" situation. For most open-world cases this does not help at all since the thing you don't want charging you has other champions in its pack, or a cloud of minions. I can think of a handful of cases where this could be useful, though. I'll be sure to try this out when I get there again.
Sleet Storm:
It replaces the ray and is pretty small for a storm. This is a PBAoE melee attack. I do not go in for melee attacks of any kind. Again, maybe a more tanky Wizard could make use of this, but judging from the damage I see handed out in the higher difficulties I have my doubts that any Wizard could ever stand up to enough hits to make this useful.
Arcane Orb, Obliteration, Arcane Nova, Tap the Source:
Fantastic fire-and-forget type Arcane Power consumer, which, despite its 10 yard explosion radius, also makes this one of the best AP powers for single-target boss fights, since you can just chuck a few at the boss on the run. The radius is sizable so it's usable out in the open world as well. Obliteration raises all damage done by a respectable amount. Arcane Nova raises the area, and Tap the Source allows you to fire off more orbs per unit of time, as well as getting you excellent efficiency per AP spent. The great virtue of Arcane Orb is that it's incredibly flexible. In the open world it mows down packs, in running battles it delivers probably the best damage on the go, in single target boss battles the damage is respectable. There's nothing it can't do, which is a good thing considering the deficiencies of many other AP powers.
Arcane Orbit:
Again designed for the possible tanky Wizard build, but if you're going to do that, just use Sleet Storm. There isn't enough AP to support them both.
Arcane Torrent:
A theoretically powerful AoE and single-target ability hamstrung by various disadvantages. The AoE is small, and like the ray abilities it requires that you stand still and channel to launch projectiles. To add to this, the projectile speed is slow and they are always aimed at a spot on the ground, even if you target an enemy. As the difficulty ramps up, fights are more and more on the move, which makes it harder and harder for Arcane Torrent to actually hit anything. In theory, if left unmolested, like in some multiplayer situations, the damage potential is high. I haven't seen it.
Disruption:
Essentially just raises Arcane Torrent's damage. There's some synergy potential here with other Wizards, maybe.
Death Blossom:
At no point do I find not controlling where my projectiles go to be a worthwhile trade, even for huge damage. They spray out randomly in a 360 degree arc while you still have to stand still and channel the spell. Perhaps useful if you are surrounded, but if you are surrounded you have much bigger things to worry about.
Disintegrate, Convergence:
The other ray spell in the Wizard's arsenal. I loved it and used it for as long as I could just because it was a giant death laser. Disintegrate does slightly less damage than Ray of Frost, but it has the huge advantage of piercing, so it damages everything it goes through and has respectable range to boot. Especially while soloing, the most common enemy formation is a line (more of an elongated ovoid, but line-ish enough) so Disintegrate typically attacks the entire enemy formation at once for heavy damage. Convergence adds a second beam that makes it even more effective at wrecking the enemy ovoid. For single targets this is directly inferior to Ray of Frost, having all the disadvantages and no appreciable advantage that I can see. Unfortunately, as higher difficulties become more and more running battles, Disintegrate becomes less and less applicable. It's doable so long as you have someone to tank for you, but anything anyone can tank isn't a threat, and as the boss modifiers pile up there will just be too many threats at range for you to ever cast a ray.
Chaos Nexus:
A powerful addition that attacks enemies (and pots, stumps, coffins, destructible architecture) that come as close as medium range with additional beams with respectable damage. If your main Disintegrate target is within this medium range it will take damage from both beams, putting Disintegrate's single target damage nearly up to Ray of Frost's. It extends Disintegrate's flexibility substantially. It doesn't, however, make it not a ray, which means that this doesn't make it any better on higher difficulties.
Volatility:
For early soloing this could be good in the same way that Explosive Bolts is good. In a multiplayer setting it happens too rarely to be of any value. And this also doesn't make it not a ray.
Entropy:
Disintegrate's range and piercing are probably two of its best attributes. Entropy takes them away, attaching all the disadvantages of a ray to a short-range fan. At the level you acquire this you will never use it.
Part 3, Defensive abilities:
Frost Nova, Cold Snap:
So far as I can tell nothing is immune to freeze, not even bosses, making this a very solid panic button. As difficulty ramps up, crowd control like this becomes even more significant. I do not currently use this but have been considering it more of late.
Shatter:
Against waves of small enemies this can keep them all locked up in frost while you kill them. At higher difficulties, increased enemy hp makes it less likely that you can chain novas back to back.
Frozen Mist:
The entire appeal of this ability is that it freezes things. Not freezing things just makes this a very poor damage spell.
Diamond Skin, Crystal Shell:
Powerful defensive ability that comes up twice as often as potions, but its limited duration makes it hard to use. Can be a definite lifesaver on higher difficulties and until you've achieved perfection in dodging all of the random things that boss mobs like to throw at you, this will always be useful, since you will always be taking a lot of damage one way or another.
Prism:
Reducing cost by 7 allows you to pop Diamond Skin and then powerfully front-load AP consuming powers, increasing the flexibility of Diamond Skin by making it applicable to every situation. With only six bar slots, you want the most flexible, generally applicable abilities in those slots. That's a good recommendation for Prism.
Mirror Skin:
Iffy on this one. Given the observed damage outputs and mob hp numbers, it doesn't make sense to put this on just to get hit. That isn't that much damage compared to mob hp, and if you get hit you probably want the extra protection from Crystal Shell, or the AP benefit from Prism if you happen to be able to not get hit.
Slow Time:
The bubble just goes up around you. This does let you get away, but it buys you a handful of seconds at best. The better use is for projectile deflection, as projectiles are very damaging in D3. Slowing them by 90% buys you a few moments to stand still and cast when being shot at. The main issue with this is flexibility, the same thing that works so well in Diamond Skin's favor. There will always be something for Diamond Skin to be useful for. Not so much Slow Time. It is possible on Hell difficulty that Diamond Skin may not be enough, and that Slow Time may be the only actual answer to projectiles.
Miasma, Time Warp, Time Shell:
All of these things debuff enemies in the bubble. If an enemy is close enough to you to be in the bubble, none of these things will be very helpful. Miasma is somewhat useful for kiting, which is sort of what happens in multiplayer when things go bad. I would imagine on higher difficulties, Slow Time-Miasma kiting might be the only way to get damage done, but I feel there are better options at that time.
Teleport, Safe Passage:
Just not as awesome as D1/2 teleport. The hefty cooldown, combined with the fact that you don't really want to be hopping through dungeons anyway (not that you could), relegates Teleport to escape panic button only, and frankly it's not a good one. It buys you a few seconds, but so do all of the other defensive abilities, and all the others buy you some time to shoot back, which Teleport doesn't. Where Safe Passage is concerned, you probably shouldn't be teleporting into places where you are going to still take damage. Sometimes you can't help it, but that just makes me wish I had Diamond Skin instead.
Wormhole:
The 1sec cooldown doesn't reset with subsequent teleports, so you can't use this to hop across the map. You can pull off three, maybe four teleports, at the outside, within the 1 second window. This may or may not let you completely disengage from mobs; I haven't tried it. If it does that it's probably a hardcore must.
Reversal:
This is actually built for offensive teleporting combined with melee range abilities. I have not yet found anything that I want to do that with, especially not a build that can afford to use a slot on Teleport, but I find the concept intriguing.
Part 4, Force abilities:
Wave of Force, Force Affinity:
This is a decent panic button. It doesn't buy you much time at all, but it makes up for it by also supplying its own damage, which is what you'd want to use that time for anyway. So far I wound up taking it off my bars when I realized just how infrequently I was using it, but it might make a comeback in higher difficulties. It would make an interesting combo with Teleport Reversal, although you can probably get the same damage in a less risky and cheaper way with other abilities.
Impactful Wave, Forceful Wave:
Buys you even more time, or more damage and less time. Overall I think I prefer the extra time. 60% weapon damage isn't enough to compensate for the reduced knockback.
Teleporting Wave:
I am at a loss to see how this benefits you in any way.
Energy Twister, Mistral Breeze, Gale Force:
Garbage. Not only does the twister move in a genuinely unpredictable path, meaning not even in any particular direction consistently, but the listed damage is if the enemy is in contact with the twister for all six seconds of its duration – yet it probably won't, since no enemy follows the bizarre paths it takes, and it even seems like the twister pushes the enemy away so that it won't. It actually does only 60% weapon damage per second and is likely to hit just once – this is as much damage as most abilities do on their secondary enhancements, not their main value. I have rarely managed to get any significant damage with this spell, and as Mistral Breeze and Gale Force don't modify these parts of the spell, they don't help it at all.
Raging Storm:
I have not tried this but I can say for certain that there's no way to collide two twisters on any kind of a consistent basis. Even if they do the payoff is the same 60% weapon damage per second. Unspectacular to say the least.
Hydra, Arcane Hydra, Lightning Hydra:
Interesting because you can fire and forget it and it will attack on the move. The downside is that even with runes the damage is very low. Another skill I haven't played with maybe as often as I should have. Definitely some potential for kiting.
Venom Hydra:
I feel like the pools of acid this leaves are contrary to the valuable things about Hydra, in that you and the enemies can be moving and Hydra still helps you out. I could be wrong.
Meteor, Molten Impact, Star Pact, Comet:
I really wanted to love Meteor, but the cost to damage ratio is actually quite poor, even with Molten Impact. Again, with the greater mobility of fights, it's harder to land meteors successfully. Even if you do place one and lure some enemies into it, you're never assured of hitting exactly what you want. Arcane Orb is generally just better – with Obliteration it hits for nearly as much for nearly half the cost, and being a projectile, if the enemy keeps moving toward you it'll hit them at some point, while you can still cleanly miss a Meteor with bad timing. The delay before it drops makes for tricky timing and in a higher-difficulty boss fight, you do not want to burden yourself with another complex task.
Meteor Swarm:
The meteors fall in completely random formations. Fun to look at but unreliable and it still has that killer delay.
Blizzard:
Very low damage for a sizable cost. 210% damage over 6 seconds works out to 35% a second, and again the enemies may not be in the Blizzard for the entire duration. That said, it does snare all enemies in it, even if it doesn't mention that, and it takes effect immediately, so for extended kiting it is far more reliable than Meteor. The slow also makes it somewhat better than Arcane Orb for this purpose.
Grasping Chill:
Somewhat useful if you're kiting large packs. I have not encountered this situation yet but I'm aware that this is a very likely situation to happen in higher difficulties. The slow might combine well in multiplayer with other more damaging abilities, such as other Wizards using Arcane Torrent or Disintegrate.
Frozen Solid:
Randomly freezing enemies is not of particular benefit. It is the leading enemy that is of concern, and with only a 20% chance, all it means is that frozen enemies will be left a little behind (but they'll catch up).
Snowbound:
Now this actually is useful. With the right abilities you can carpet the entire battlefield in Blizzards constantly. Although this is using up your AP to do very little damage, it's hard to understate the value of making sure that you and your allies are always faster than the opposition. One of the biggest problems with the running battles that ensue when nobody in your party can take a hit from a mob is that they are often the same speed or faster than you are, limiting your engagement window. Blizzard may kill them slower, but it also may enable allies to kill them faster and keep everyone safe to boot.
Part 5, Conjuration abilities:
Ice Armor, Chilling Aura:
Solid defensive buff spell. Anything attacking you gets frozen, buying you precious time to get clear. This works on a surprising number of bosses, at least in Normal. Another huge kiting aid, making sure that once you get caught, at least you don't stay caught. Chilling Aura is a big enhancement, slowing anything that approaches and making it even easier to stay out of harm's way. Still useful in higher difficulties although the predominance of ranged threats makes it less than optimal.
Crystallize:
An Armor increase of 15% isn't as great as it sounds. It probably translates to another 5% or so damage reduction, but this might be what a tanky build needs to succeed. I wouldn't know.
Storm Armor, Reactive Armor, Strike Back, Jagged Ice:
This is an offensive spell masquerading as an armor. To get full use out of it, it requires that you be able to take hits already. I'm lumping in Ice Armor's Jagged Ice rune since it's the same thing and equally useless. Even 100% weapon damage is not a good trade for being hit, and you're better off with an ability on your bar that actually kills them much faster than this or helps you stay alive.
Power of the Storm:
An interesting ability that I've thought about playing with. Unlike the reduction from Prism, this will be up all the time. This can make ray spells sustainable for a long period of time – of course, in order to be casting said ray spell long enough, or to need it for that long, you'll be playing multiplayer, and on the lower difficulties at that. It could combo well with Tap the Source to launch even more orbs, but a big issue is that the base ability is not really worth having.
Magic Weapon:
Invaluable buff. This doesn't just enhance your base weapon damage, it is a straight multiplier on your damage done after all other modifiers have been applied. This results in a massive damage increase, over and above the listed value, and this increase translates to every single spell that depends on weapon damage, which is nearly all of them. The power of this combined with other similar Wizard abilities can stack firepower to a devastating degree. Unless I have to turn into a pure crowd controller in later difficulties, I cannot ever imagine myself not using this.
Electrify:
I thought I saw this triggering off spells but I wasn't looking that closely. If what I think I saw was this triggering, then the arc is not very large.
Force Weapon:
The knockback is basically never, but the 5% extra weapon damage translates to even more damage when multiplied with everything else.
Conduit:
Against 5% extra damage, a chance at 1 Arcane Power isn't that compelling. It can be used in concert with Power of the Storm to further extend ray spells, but I feel like past Normal I'm always moving, and hence regenerating AP, more than I'm just standing still blasting away.
Familiar, Dartling:
This isn't a full minion. As it is unable to be attacked by enemies, it also can't draw attention from you, and it only attacks while you're firing – if you're moving it won't shoot. Its damage is therefore pretty weak and generally cosmetic in nature. Dartling lets the shots pierce, which is a small bonus but not really noteworthy.
Sparkflint:
This is why I have Familiar on my bars. This is a 12% multiplier on all damage done that stacks multiplicatively with Magic Weapon and likewise occurs after other modifiers. Together, Force Weapon and Sparkflint increase damage done by 28.8%. That's really hard to pass up. It does result in a bar full of essentially passive abilities, but the bonus of having things that just increase your damage done is that you'll never not want it. When slots are limited, flexibility rules, and nothing is more flexible than “do more damage with everything”.
Energy Armor, Energy Tap:
65% sounds like a lot, but in practice this is at most another 12% or so less damage taken. It's helpful, but it has a serious drawback in reducing your max AP. Staying alive is important, but you do this in order to kill them faster. With Energy Tap this ability accomplishes both things at once and becomes quite useful. Note that Armor in D3 is damage reduction from everything, with physical-only reduction falling under the logical heading of Physical Resistance instead.
Absorption:
Random AP restoration when getting hit isn't really that valuable, especially since this rune keeps the AP penalty. There are better ways to get this effect.
Part 6, Mastery abilities:
Explosive Blast, Unleashed, Short Fuse:
This is a PBAoE with a built-in delay. Melee range makes it difficult to use. The delay and cooldown don't help either. Again, probably another tool for a more durable Wizard, if such a mythical object exists.
Time Bomb:
With the right timing this could be a fantastic kiting tool. The damage to AP ratio is actually quite good. It could potentially combine very well with Blizzard. I'm not sure it would see much use in multiplayer, but this and Blizzard with Grasping Chill are definitely on my list of things to try in Hell solo.
Mirror Image, Simulacrum, Duplicates:
A panic button that can actually take the heat off you completely for a little while. The problem is that the images do not taunt, so the enemies are not guaranteed to go for them, and that they buy so very little time. In a running battle you're much better off with Blizzard if you want to keep them off you, since that lets you do it constantly instead of buying maybe two out of every fifteen seconds.
Archon:
A devastating cooldown that can and should be unleashed on any kind of challenge. Upon learning this, I immediately put it on my bars and proceeded to melt two act bosses in under ten seconds each. Obviously it's become less effective in Nightmare, but it's still a gigantic damage boost. Transforming into the archon gives you a PBAoE burst for a fairly mediocre amount of damage, but also replaces your mouse skills with things that are much more impressive. Your left click becomes a melee attack that bursts in an area for 250% weapon damage, and your right becomes a Disintegrate dealing 300% weapon damage. Importantly, these attacks do not consume AP or any other resource, so you can cast through the full duration of the spell, which makes it an even bigger damage boost than it first appears. Sadly, even the Armor and Resistance boost doesn't make it tanky enough to survive high difficulty bosses, but I've popped it and gone out in a blaze of glory to successfully enable my team to get the win enough times that I'm still happy to have it on my bars.
Arcane Destruction:
In solo it's easy to take advantage of this by simply casting until you're swarmed, and then instead of retreating, using Archon. The armor and resistance boosts provided by Archon make this tactic usable even by super squishy wizards such as myself. It isn't the greatest rune, though, and in multiplayer it basically never does anything.
Archon Teleport:
So named to distinguish it from the skill. Deceptively powerful, since you want to cast as often as you can while being an archon, which is to say that you don't want to waste time repositioning should it become necessary. Teleport makes it easy.
Pure Power:
I think I would use this ability no matter what it actually did, but thankfully it's also quite good, letting you access powerful Archon goodness even more often.
Part 7, Passive abilities:
Blur:
Probably the foundational passive of any theoretical tank Wizard build. Not a part of my build because I am mostly threatened by projectiles, not melee (and the melee that does threaten me, like a charging champion pack, should be avoided or I get one-shot, not something Blur can affect). Still a powerful ability and never a bad call. I have been considering this more lately as I advance in difficulty.
Power Hungry:
Better than it first appears. I ran this for quite some time and found that at least in solo it allowed me to chain AP abilities together for a very long time. I've been considering it even for multiplayer, since globes picked up by party members heal you.
Evocation:
Obviously depends on your build. I find that with Diamond Skin and Archon, Evocation becomes a compelling alternative.
Glass Cannon:
The final stand of the Wizard passive damage tripod. Once again, the 15% here happens after other multipliers and stacks multiplicatively with Sparkflint and Magic Weapon. Together the three abilities raise your damage by 48.12%. And in return, reducing your armor and resistances by 10% is only another 2-3% damage taken. That's almost no trade at all.
Prodigy:
Useful but not outstanding. From what I can tell, it does not proc per target hit by a Signature spell; it merely asks, “did your spell damage something, yes/no” and restores 4 AP if the answer is yes. Of all the runes and passives that restore small amounts of AP, this is by far the best. That doesn't necessarily make it worth using, although I do use it to recharge in multiplayer. I'm still iffy on it.
Astral Presence:
I can't imagine not taking this for any Wizard. 20 extra AP and 2 more a second is good for anyone doing anything. Flexibility wins again.
Illusionist:
Not having used Mirror Image and Teleport much, I haven't used this either. I can see the potential, but that's about it.
Cold Blooded:
Weirdly specific. Essentially this is Blizzard comboing with itself and possibly with the Comet variation of Meteor. If it can be made to work for running battles this could be very valuable.
Conflagration:
There are only a handful of ways of dealing fire damage and none of them are really that good (Fire Bolts, Hydra, Meteor). I guess a fire wizard build could take advantage of this, but a fire wizard build would have a lot of other issues.
Paralysis:
Even at 8%, nothing about this is consistent. Stunning random mobs might actually hurt more than it helps.
Galvanizing Ward:
Passive self-healing. Not to be underestimated, especially with potions on a long cooldown and health globes not consistently available. That said, it's quite situational. Most encounters are easily survived and healed up afterward through globes. Those that don't generally won't be affected by a trickle of passive healing. Some of the Act bosses tend to be long multiple phase fights with very little available healing – this is where Galvanizing Ward shines.