What they could ADD to make the Wizard even BETTER

[swart]

As I play around (spending too much time) with the skill calculator, I'm coming up with ideas that could make the Wizard way more diverse and cool than what Blizzard has done with it so far.

EXAMPLES:

More rune effects like Hydra where you have a variety of elements. I see a dearth of options for elemental wizards. There could easily be a rune effect for Meteor that turns it into an enormous lightning bolt with chance to stun instead of DoT. There could be rune effects for Blizzard that turn it into a lightning storm or a fire storm.

Elemental builds are severely underwhelming right now, with too much focus on arcane. Why don't any of Disintegrate's rune effects do fire damage? It really makes passives like Conflagration and Black Ice a lot less useful.

Arcane Orb: Could be runed for Fireball, Frozen Orb, etc. (Celestial Orb and Obliterate are pretty close, but arcane).

There are some skills that just seem useless. Explosive Blast is one of my favourite ideas, but it's way too weak. Even with Short Fuse, you've got a skill that does 164% damage over 12 yards with a 1-second cooldown, and it's centred on you--for 45 AP. Compare with UNRUNED Arcane Orb, which does 225% at range for 10 yards, with no cooldown, for 35 AP. Useless!

I could go on but you catch my drift. As much as I'm looking forward to this game, I'm tempering my expectations because a lot of it looks unpolished. The skills and resource systems for Monk and DH need even more work.

[Inarius]

The idea of the wizard is to be something different from the regular spellcasters of sanctuary called sorceress. Thus the focus has been shifted from elemental to arcane and time magic. For the variaty of spells a few elemental spells have been added. But more elemental spells would bring the wizard back to the old order she left (see her background story) and distanced herself from.

[soulzek]

More abilities like Hydra in the essence of being able to deal damage WHILE MOVING. Think back to D2, Sorcs had quite a few of these available. Frozen Orb, Blizzard (lasted longer than D3), etc.

[Elfik]

I think that, like the beta, the skill calculator is not up to date with Blizzard's current internal build. Hence all the mistakes and imbalances, like explosive blast (or maybe I'm giving Blizzard too much credit). While I would love to see more elemental skills, I would sooner see the game released...sooner. As for abilities to deal damage while moving, it looks like the wizard in D3 has plenty. For example, blizzard is a DOT, hydra and familiar fire projectiles on their own, Meteor has a burning effect, "living lightning" shock pulse, etc. I don't see what you're getting at about D2 sorcs. Yeah the D3 wizard is supposed to be different, and she is. For one thing, there's a lot more cooldown spells.

In other ways though... I mean arcane is just another element in a way, it's similar to cold damage in D2. Arcane orb is a slow moving aoe, kind of like frozen orb (I know it's effect is more like fireball). Take temporal flux and arcane damage even slows enemies, how unique lol! I don't know care about it being completely different than D2, because it never will be, so I wouldn't mind more skills of any kind, least of all lightning. But I would rather they just release the game and forget about it skills for now.

[swart]

While I would love to see more elemental skills, I would sooner see the game released...sooner.

I'm with you on that. This is really all just mental masturbation. Blizz is doing their best, I'm sure.

I'd like to see more options with Magic Weapon. The poison enchant in particular seems useless. Something like a small AoE with each attack would be fun. Or at least more interesting elemental enchants, or what's wrong with increased weapon rate?