Diablo III Wizard Skills Detailed

Rounding off their Diablo III skill tree dissection, Diii.net brings us an in-depth look at the wizard’s many talents and spells.

Arcane Orb
Active Skill
Rank:: 1/5
Description:: An orb of pure energy deals 11-16 on contact and an additional 1-2 arcane damage to all enemies in the blast area.
Rank:: 2/5
Description:: An orb of pure energy deals 13-19 on contact and an additional 2-4 arcane damage to all enemies in the blast area.
Mana Cost:: 7

This one very quickly became my skill of choice for ranged attacks. It dealt substantial damage with a big AoE splash, and had a reasonable mana cost. I’m dubious about the listed 1-2 AoE damage, since a few of these into a mob left no survivors.

The drawback to Arcane Orb is that it moves very slowly; more slowly than any other Wizard skill I played with, and this makes it very hard to hit moving targets, or back row enemies. It was not very useful against Dune Dervishes, since those monsters move side to side a lot, and when they’re not walking they’re spinning around in their Whirlwind mode, in which they reflect most projectiles off at odd angles. They certainly reflected every Arcane Orb I fired at them, though that could be fun since my shots weren’t neutralized, just redirected, and the bounces would often head right into some Fallen or other targets.

There was one scenario area in the desert (shown in the gameplay movie) where about five Dune Dervishes burst out of the ground at once. I didn’t think to try it at the time, but in retrospect I wish I could have herded the Dervishes into a cluster, and then tried throwing in some Arcane Orbs. Just to see if my Orbs would have been bounced around like pachinko balls. (Dune Dervishes only reflected floating projectiles, so Electrocute chewed them right up.)