Lighting vs Cold vs Arcane vs Fire vs Physical

[Musashi]

I really like theme builds and the Cold Wizard seems a popular choice. I was wondering if there was some reason to go with certain damage type theme builds over others. Cold slows enemies as a built in side effect. I can't think of any other damage type that has a secondary benefit unruned and not using any passives.

The passives of course can make certain damage types do additional things or synergize, but I read that they at one time built the game to have the different damage types do different things but gave up on it because they said it just didnt' work.

So, why would I go with anything other than cold damage as my theme?

[itstheMZez]

Probably gonna be cold resistance mobs at some point in the game, otherwise I agree certain elemental themed builds do seem ridiculous with the passives. At least thats what I'm hoping for as I'm playing a multi-ele. themed wizard regardless XD

[Elfik]

To me, the most enticing is actually arcane. The main reason is there are more arcane skills to choose from, and related to that, there is a lack of high-damage aoe spells in the cold, fire and lightning categories (in lightning's case, none). Sleet storm is nice but it's very limited in range and only a runed version of a single target skill. Blizzard is a DoT, or in other words it's a skill that does low damage over a period of time that cannot be stacked. Comet (meteor) is a great cold skill, but it's only one rune variant so it limits the number of cold builds. Fire has meteor, one of the more powerful skills that also has a DoT component. Arcane has arcane orb, and disintegrate.

Is it necessary to have either meteor, arcane orb, or disintegrate? No, but they are three of the most appealing wizard skills, in my opinion.

Cold would be the second most appealing to me, because ray of frost is one of the better single target skills the wizard has, and comet is one of the better aoe skills for the wizard. Of course, comet's damage/AP ratio will be lower than other skills to make up for the chilling effect. And there are other options to slow enemies that don't involve cold spells.

Lightning is the least appealing because it's hard to do a lot of damage with it. There are a lot of support skills with lightning, but I doubt I will try using a lightning build as a solo player, unless someone discovers something after the game is released (or blizzard changes something). Thematically though, lightning is my favorite element.

There are very few fire skills as well, but since meteor is so strong, fire is quite appealing, although there's pretty much only one core set of skills to use (shock pulse and meteor, probably hydra too).

[LucianDK]

Yeah, definitely hard to make a single element focused wizard. Theres a definite slant towards pure arcane in the selection of skills

[Elfik]

Also in terms of signature skills, we only have 1 arcane, 2 lightning, and 1 physical (assuming spectral blade is physical?). Ray of frost can be runed to decrease AP cost, so it may be a viable replacement for a signature skill. And shock pulse can be runed into fire damage. Still, these selections make it hard to do an element focus.

[LucianDK]

Appears the Cold Blood rune for Ray of Frost is incorrect, supposedly only reduces costs to 12ap down from 20.

[Such Violent Storms]

I've always tried to concentrate on a single element. Here's a cold build I've theorycrafted:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...fjg!ZYW!ZYYaac

The Cold Blooded passive is kind've vague in that it says "Chilled." I don't know if a general "slow by x%" counts toward it, if all cold attacks "chill" targets, or if it has to specifically say that the skill "Chills" a target. So you may or may not need Chilling Aura.

Edit: And of course you can always splash Archon in to any build just because.

[HardRock]

assuming spectral blade is physical?

Spectral Blade doesn't have an innate damage type, so your gear decides what kind of damage it deals. If you don't have an elemental mod on your gear then it does physical damage.

Appears the Cold Blood rune for Ray of Frost is incorrect, supposedly only reduces costs to 12ap down from 20.

That's correct. Blizzard should really fix that. It's been like that for months now.

The Cold Blooded passive is kind've vague in that it says "Chilled." I don't know if a general "slow by x%" counts toward it, if all cold attacks "chill" targets, or if it has to specifically say that the skill "Chills" a target. So you may or may not need Chilling Aura.

Slowed and Chilled is two different things to the game, because they each have their own affixes on weapons. How will they differ? I don't know. One will probably only slow movement, while the other will slow attack speed as well.

At the moment, all cold damage "slows" targets, but only their movement as far as I can tell. When this happens, the game says that the target is Snared.

Good luck figuring out what means what.

[Scorch Hellfire]

Slowed and Chilled is two different things to the game, because they each have their own affixes on weapons. How will they differ? I don't know. One will probably only slow movement, while the other will slow attack speed as well.

At the moment, all cold damage "slows" targets, but only their movement as far as I can tell. When this happens, the game says that the target is Snared.

Good luck figuring out what means what.

I'm pretty sure the Chill from cold damage is essentially the same as being Slowed (just like stunning something and freezing it are essentially the same thing). Slowing from skills always shows as that ripply distorted area under somethings feet and Chilled will always be the frost over the enemy. I don't think cold damage or skills slow attack speed unless they say they do (such as Ray of Frost). Both of these effects (Slowed and Chilled) make the "Snared" message come up. Just try hitting stuff with Wave of Force and then something else with Ray of Frost.

As for coming up with viable single element builds, that is extremely easy for the Wizard (yes it's easiest to do all arcane, but you can do also do all fire, frost, lightning, physical, and even poison if you stick to spectral blade and hydra for damage) and can be done with other classes as well. Obviously you can make fire and poison themed WDs, but you can also easily do all fire, lightning, and holy Monks as well as fire, poison and lightning themed Demon Hunters. Now there really isn't any advantage of different elements over the others (except for the passives on the wizard and wd) other than when you come across monsters and eventually players that have a high resistance to a certain element. It's mostly just a matter of liking the mechanic of the skill that has a certain elemental damage type.

[HardRock]

I'm pretty sure the Chill from cold damage is essentially the same as being Slowed (just like stunning something and freezing it are essentially the same thing).

Forgot that Wave of Force slows targets. The effect is indeed the same as for chill, at least that's how I remember it. I'll see if this is indeed the case or if one of them slows attack speeds as well.

I can't see specific resists against them in the affix list either, so they're the same in this regard as well.

This means that there are different affixes for slow and chill purely because of added flavor.

I don't think cold damage or skills slow attack speed unless they say they do (such as Ray of Frost).

So far, everything I saw suggests the opposite. Cold damage on weapons chills targets, even with skills that use the weapon's elemental mod. Blizzards chills target, which is apparent in the new skill demonstration video. I can't think of any other skill with cold damage at the moment that doesn't explicitly state that it chills targets and that's verifiable.