Wizard thoughts

[MongoJerry]

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.

Like me, you missed the key power of split. I used Charged Blast for a long time and couldn't understand why so many pug's were using Split, when the damage Split caused didn't justify it. Then, I did some testing and I understand now -- you get a separate Prodigy proc for each of the split magic missles. That is, if all three of your split magic missles hit something, you get a whopping 12 AP back. This makes Split almost overpowered, and I wonder if Blizzard will end up nerfing this in a future patch.

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.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong and a 1,000 times wrong.

MISCONCEPTION: In any boss encounter, you have to run around, so I can't afford to stand in one place casting a channeled spell.

TRUTH: Every spell forces you to stand still for the length of its casting time. There are no "on the run" spells anymore. The difference with Ray of Frost is that while you are standing still, you can hit the boss with the most damage of any spells that the Wizard has (outside of Archon) and if you don't need to run again at just that moment, you can keep it on the boss until you do have to move. This is true in single player, but it's especially true in a partied situation, when a boss might be distracted for a few moments by one's compatriots. More damage dealt = less time the boss has to kill you or your party. It is very useful against end of act bosses.

Against minor bosses, it wtfpwns, because you can often stand in one place for long periods of time in these encounters.

Against champions and boss packs, it's usually best to use an aoe attack initially, but there are lots of situations after some initial damage is dealt that you want to single target a few down to reduce the size of the pack attacking you or your party. Or, you might have already cleared the minions and you want to take down the boss who's at half health. Ray of Frost will kill it fast.

What about regular mobs? There are lots of situations where there are one or two very big mobs with big health that are alone and that you need to take down fast. Big old charging bisons, guardian towers, trees, etc. Also, there are mobs that summon other mobs that need to be killed quickly or the shaman-like guys who resurrect Fallen. Those also need to be taken down quickly.

And don't forget the @^@$ treasure imps. You have to take those guys down fast before they run off into other mobs or teleport away.

There are lots of single target situations in Diablo 3, and I just can't see justifying dropping the highest powered single target spell the Wizard has (ramps up to 280% weapon damage). I use and enjoy it in many situations.