Wizard thoughts

[MongoJerry]

When I was trying Ray of Frost and failing with it, in 4-player hell games, even a Snow Blasted Ray of Frost is insufficient to kill a minion, even though I had 140 Arcane Power and was draining it all, with all my damage increasing passives in place. Just to put the scaling in perspective, I used Archon three times during a single encounter with a champion pack this evening. On one of those uses I was able to channel Disintegration Wave for more than fifteen seconds on account of the champions' Illusionist property, and had the beam on one of the champions for the full duration of thirty or so seconds. That was a little under half of its health.

You're right that I still have to see Hell, so it's entirely possible that my opinion may change. However, it has been my experience so far that the more people in the game and the higher the mobs' health, the *more* effective Ray of Frost becomes. No, I may not be able to kill a key mob on my own with one drain of the AP ball, but I do a heck of a lot more damage to it than I would have had a I used any other spell. In order to finish it off, I either have to use a signature spell to help replenish AP and then fire Ray of Frost again, or I count on another teammate to assist me in focus firing it down. The fewer members of a pack running around, the better for everyone. When mobs have little health, then other spells can be "good enough" to take down a mob, but when they have a lot of health, I want to have the highest dps spell I can get.

Again, though, it's situational. Ray of Frost is one tool in my toolbelt. If the mobs are grouped up enough that I can damage them effectively with Arcane Orbs, I'll do that. However, for me, I can't forsee dropping the highest damage single target spell that a Wizard has (ramps up to 280% weapon damage) any time soon.

Skandranon, can you summarize the skill combinations you are using right now that you have found effective in hell against champion and boss packs?