Wizard Class Overview

• The Element Type of Wave of Destruction from Chantodo's Resolve is fully dynamic and matches your current highest element at all times.
• Wave of Destruction from Chantodo's Resolve benefits from Elemental Damage Bonus if and only if an Archon rune with the same Element Type is selected on the skill bar. Selecting an incorrect rune on Archon leads to Wave of Destruction not gaining any Elemental Damage Bonus even though "all runes" are granted via Vyr's Amazing Arcana (2) Bonus.
• Wave of Destruction uses your current Attacks per Second (from your details sheet) as a separate damage multiplier. The faster you attack, the harder it hits. This multiplier caps out at 5.0 Attacks per Second with a reduced scaling for a final value of 5.0 * 1/1.75 = 2.857. Any further Increased Attack Speed % past that point does not increase WoD damage anymore.
• Activating Archon consumes all Chantodo's Resolve stacks immediately; however, any lingering abilities, such as Explosive Blast and Arcane Torrent that were cast out of Archon already grant you new Chantodo's Resolve stacks for your next rotation.

See more about this set in our Vyr Chantodo Archon Wizard Guide.

• When channeling Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost or Disintegrate, the Deathwish 325% damage multiplier is activated after 60 frames of channeling (1 second) and lasts for as long as you channel, dropping immediately when you interrupt the channel.
• Being teleported by Wormhole Elite affix doesn't cause you to lose the Deathwish damage multiplier.
• Due to this 1 second delay, it is not always optimal to teleport into an Oculus Ring proc during a damage burst.

• Etched Sigil has an Internal Cooldown (ICD) of 59 frames.
• An Energy Twister can only spawn when Arcane Torrent, Ray of Frost or Disintegrate ticks and Etched Sigil is off cooldown.
• You can spawn one Energy Twister every 60 frames when your channeling abilities' Breakpoint is a divisor of 60 (2 FPA, 3 FPA, 4 FPA, 5 FPA, 6 FPA, 10 FPA, 12 FPA, 15 FPA, 20 FPA, 30 FPA). On other Breakpoints your Etched Sigil has a longer cooldown.
• The first Energy Twister (the parent) must be selfcasted. It does not matter for any consecutive Twister that merges into the parent if it's selfcasted or not. Twisters cast by Etched Sigil cannot proc Area Damage. That is due to the fact that only a selfcasted Energy Twister can proc Area Damage.
• Any Arcane Energy Twister rune casted by Etched Sigil (when channeling) consumes Wave of Force Arcane Attunement stacks.

• The Attack Speed bonus of The Shame of Delsere and Fragment of Destiny are multiplicative with each other and with other bonuses. This means using both grants you a 1.5 * 1.5 = 2.25 Attack Speed multiplier to all Signature Spells.
• The damage bonus stacks from Fragment of Destiny are additive with each other, combining into a 300% separate damage multiplier at 10 stacks. To gain and keep the stacks, you need to actually hit enemies. Each enemy hit adds another stack, so you won't have to attack 10 times in AoE situations.

• This item provides you a 5 second buff (seen on your buff bar) when you electrocute an enemy at least 15 yards away (around 1/4 to 1/3 of a screen).
• Keep in mind the range requirement! If you keep standing in melee range without other enemies further away, you will be in trouble.
• The Shocking Aspect is generally used for high Greater Rifts to guarantee consistent uptime of this buff. When staying too close to enemies - even with a large pull around you - it can happen that a streak of consecutive hits will not activate Halo of Karini and choosing the rune prevents this from happening.

• Manald Heal applies 14,000% Weapon Damage to targets stunned with Paralysis.
• Paralysis behaves differently for skills with an inherent speed coefficient = 1.0 (damage hit skills) and speed coefficient > 1.0 (channeling skills).
  • If the speed coefficient is 1.0: These skills have a flat 15% chance per attack to proc Paralysis on the target. If Paralysis is procced by a damage instance, that instance applies a Manald Heal damage instance. For instance Spectral Blade applies three hits per animation - each hit applies a Manald Heal damage instance if Paralysis is procced for that attack.
  • If the speed coefficient is > 1.0: These skills have a different chance per damage instance to proc Paralysis for your character. The proc chance for Electrocute is 7.804%; the proc chance for Arcane Torrent Static Discharge is 5.086%. If Paralysis is procced by a damage instance, it opens a 67 frame window on your character. Each damage instance within that specific window from the same skill also applies a Manald Heal damage instance to all targets hit.
• The takeaway is that On-Hit skills proc Paralysis on a target while Channeling skills proc Paralysis for your character and open a 67 frame window (this also means you can proc it without hitting a target, e.g. in town). At this point it is also worthwhile noting that while a Paralysis window is open, each damage instance within that window can reproc a new window (there is no ICD) giving you the possibility to chain Paralysis procs.
  Additionally, there is an anomaly where while there is a window open created with a channeling skill (speed coefficient > 1.0), any damage hit skill (speed coefficient = 1.0) immediately closes that window. This effect can drastically decrease your damage when attempting to deal damage with channeling abilities while also incorporating any non-channeling Lightning abilities.

• Orb of Infinite Depth grants you stacks even when Explosive Blast is coming from Wand of Woh.
• The damage reduction is self-additive up to 80% at 4 stacks.

• Pulls normal monsters only and pixelpulls them ignoring their hitboxes. Ranslor's Folly tries to pull enemies within 30 yards twice a second. This is extremely useful to benefit from Area Damage.
• This usually works best when cast on an empty spot somewhere between all of the monsters you would like to pull. Certain monsters do not stack very well when the spot you cast on is already occupied.
• Each twister attempts to pull surrounding monsters 2 times per second, however each monster can only be pulled by this item once every 6 seconds.
• If you only cast one Energy Twister, it can pull the same monsters twice: immediately upon appearing and right before disappearing.
• Energy Twisters cast by Etched Sigil can proc the pull, while the ones cast by Mirror Images cannot.
• Due to the Crowd Control Resistance, you can't pull enemies together endlessly. Try to get everything in with a single cast.

• Each hit from Meteor on an enemy applies a debuff granting you a 50% separate damage multiplier, up to 10 stacks.
• The debuff stacks add up as one combined 500% separate damage multiplier.
• The debuff stacks have a duration of 5 seconds. All stacks have their duration refreshed on hit.
• The ground effect of Meteor does not contribute stacks.
• The lure effect means enemies are taunted by your Meteor Impacts and run towards them.

• The Attack Speed bonus of The Shame of Delsere and Fragment of Destiny are multiplicative with each other and with other bonuses. This means using both grants you a 1.5 * 1.5 = 2.25 Attack Speed multiplier to all Signature Spells.

• The first placed Energy Twister (the parent) snapshots Absolute Zero, Spellsteal, Arcane Attunement.
• Any consecutive Twister, which merges into the parent, adapts all multipliers from its parent.
• It does not matter for any consecutive Twister, which merges into the parent, whether it's selfcasted or casted by Etched Sigil.
• Each time the parent grows from a merge its duration is reset.
• Each parent can be merged a maximum of 4 times.
• Each time a Twister merges into a parent, the traveling direction of the parent can change even if Valthek's Rebuke is equipped.

• The three additional casts from Wand of Woh cannot proc Area Damage.
• The Explosive Blast cast by Wand of Woh inherits the rune selected from your skill bar.

Mechanics
Grants a stack each time you use a Signature spell up to a maximum of 5. Your next non-Signature spell will have a separate multiplicative multiplier of 1.6 applied to it.

Best use
Great passive if you play a build that hits hard only a few times and not with high frequency; it imposes the restriction of playing a Signature spell though which limits its usefulness significantly. It's a very defining and nice niche passive though.

Mechanics
Grants +20 Maximum Arcane Power, exactly the same as the secondary affix on Wands, Wizard Hats and Sources, and an additional 2.5 Arcane Power Regeneration per Second to the base of 10.0 Arcane Power Regeneration per Second.

Best use
Usually investing into Resource Cost Reduction, for example via Captain Crimson's Trimmings, or rolling the primary affix Arcane Power on Critical Hit is a better choice then attempting to "regenerate" your ressources. Hence, due to these better choices, this passive only has limited usage; mostly during leveling.

Mechanics
A separate multiplicative and global damage multiplier of 1.3 against enemies within 15 yards.

Best use
The go-to DPS choice for any melee fighting Wizard build. One of the most commonly picked Wizard passives in history of the class.

Mechanics
A separate damage reduction of 17%.

Best use
A great passive during the leveling process, however, for nearly every build other strong choices exist that are more important than the damage reduction at hand. If at all this passive is to be considered filler, if nothing else fits in your build (which is very unlikely).

Mechanics

• All stacks share the same duration. Each stack adds +0.5 seconds to the base duration of 3 seconds.
• All stacks refresh at the same time and debuff at the same time.
• Stacks refresh when you kill a monster.
• If you lose the shield due to taking too much damage, all stacks are dropped.

Best use
Galvanizing Ward is a strictly better choice to protect your hit points for Squirt's Necklace with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer.

Mechanics
Applies a debuff on the target that lasts 3 seconds. The 10% damage buff is additive and applies to party members as well. The debuff is unique meaning it does not stack from multiple Wizards.

Best use
Unfortunately 10% conditional, additive damage is not great. If you have an open passive and you'd want to include additional damage, you should rather consider Elemental Exposure or Unwavering Will; that is if you have a build where you can remain stationary. Only for Wizard support builds this passive is a default include.

Mechanics
Applies a debuff on the target that lasts 3 seconds. The target has a 6% increased chance of being critically hit. The debuff is unique meaning it does not stack from multiple Wizards.

Best use
Unfortunately not a great DPS choice whatsoever, however, a default include for Wizard support builds. If you have an open passive and you'd want to include additional damage, you should rather consider Elemental Exposure or Unwavering Will; that is if you have a build where you can remain stationary.

Mechanics

• Each stack is a debuff for one of the following elements: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning.
• Each stack is unique and refreshes its own duration when re-applied.
• Any ability with a proc-coefficient > 0 applies a stack of its respective element. This inherently means that abilities casted from Etched Sigil do not grant any stacks.
• The elemental range on the Weapon applies its respective stack with all abilities if the elemental range is of the type: Arcane, Cold, Fire or Lightning. The only exception to this is Hydra, which only applies the stack of the Hydra element itself.
• Does not grant a damage bonus to party members.
• Each stack is a unique debuff on a target meaning multiple Wizards in the group compete for the debuff.
• The Magistrate has a special interaction. Hydra applies the stack of the Hydra element itself. The Frost Nova casted by your Hydras does, however, apply the Cold stack as well as the stack for the elemental range of your weapon.
• The damage from each stack is additive to each other adding up to a total of 20% extra damage. The multiplier is a separate multiplicative global multiplier.
• Primordial Soul sets the bonus per stack to 10% (40% total). Everything else remains exactly the same.

Best use
The best DPS choice after Audacity and Power Hungry; however, arguably the most complicated passive in the game. The element of the damage range on a weapon only matters when this passive is being played, elsewise it's absolutely inconsequential what element a weapon rolled with. This also leads to insane weapon requirements when attempting to roll a perfect weapon.

Mechanics
Grants flat 20% Cooldown Reduction.

Best use
Amazing passive if you play Archon or an Explosive Blast with Wand of Woh. Elsewise an underwhelming passive that doesn't provide any interesting mechanic.

Mechanics

• After 5 seconds of not taking damage you receive a shield.
• If the damage you took only damaged your shields it still counts as "taking damage".
• The shield has no maximum duration.
• The shield snapshots based on your maximum life (not current life).

Best use
By far the best shielding passive in the game and the best choice to protect your hit points for Squirt's Necklace with Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer. It's very surprising that the shield refreshes after 5 seconds even though "you didn't really take any damage" and only your shields did. This is not in line with the wording of Squirt's, which does not drop when only your shields take damage.

Mechanics
The damage increase as well as Armor and All Resistance penalty are all additive.

Best use
One of the worst passives in the game, by far. The cost of the passive at hand is massive, while the upside is nearly neglectable. Sometimes used in Nephalem Rift builds, where Goldwrap makes toughness irrelevant.

Mechanics
The passive activates even if the damage taken is only on your shields. After taking 15% of your maximum Life as damage, the cooldowns of Mirror Image, Slow Time and Teleport are reset. After using any of these aforementioned abilities, including Archon Teleport, you gain a 30% Movement Speed Buff.

Best use
Amazing utility passive, especially great for efficient farming. A default include for Nephalem Rift farming.

Mechanics
Paralysis behaves differently for skills with an inherent speed coefficient = 1.0 (damage hit skills) and speed coefficient > 1.0 (channeling skills).

• Inherent speed coefficient = 1.0: These skills have a flat 15.0% chance per attack to proc Paralysis on the target. If Paralysis is procced by a damage instance, that instance applies a Manald Heal damage instance. For instance Spectral Blade Thrown Blade applies three hits per animation - each hit applies a Manald Heal damage instance if Paralysis is procced for that attack.
• Speed coefficient > 1.0: These skills have a different chance per damage instance to proc Paralysis for your character. The proc-chance for Electrocute is 7.804555427071125%; the proc chance for Arcane Torrent Static Discharge is 5.086232538105606%. If Paralysis is procced by a damage instance, it opens a 67 frame window on your character. Each damage instance within that specific window from the same skill also applies a Manald Heal damage instance to all targets hit.

In short: "Hit" skills proc Paralysis on a target. "Channeling" skills proc Paralysis for your character and open a frame window (this also means you can proc it without hitting a target, e.g. in town). At this point it is also worthwhile noting that while a Paralysis window is open, each damage instance within that window can reproc a new window (there is no ICD) giving you the possibility to chain Paralysis procs. Additionally, there is an anomaly while a window is opened with a channeling skill (speed coefficient > 1.0), any damage hit skill (speed coefficient = 1.0) immediately closes that window. This effect can drastically decrease one's damage when attempting to damage with channeling abilities while also incorporating any non-channeling Lightning abilities.

Best use
Only use this in conjunction with Manald Heal; unfortunately these type of builds are not viable nowadays.

Mechanics
The ranged counterpart of Audacity. A separate multiplicative and global 1.3 multiplier against targets 30 yards away from you.

Best use
Rarely used since Wizard is DPSing in melee range for the most time. At most some Frozen Orb might use it due to its fixed travel distance.

Mechanics
You gain 5 extra Arcane Power when you use a Signature spell.

Best use
Usually investing into Resource Cost Reduction, for example via Captain Crimson's Trimmings, or rolling the primary affix Arcane Power on Critical Hit is a better choice then attempting to "regenerate" your ressources. Hence, due these better choices, this passive only has limited usage; mostly during leveling.

Mechanics

• Applies a debuff for 2 seconds on a target each time you hit it with a Arcane ability.
• Does not work with the Arcane Damage Range from a weapon.
• Is unique and therefore does not stack multiple times or from multiple Wizards.

Best use
One of Wizard's worst passives. Never use it. Ever.

Mechanics

• Grants you a 400% shield of your Maximum Life for 5 seconds. You are not immune; you can still die!
• Knockbacks and stuns all targets in a 50 yards radius around you.
• The 3 second stun applies first. Monsters are immune afterwards.

Best use
Our cheat-death passive. A must include for Hardcore players.

Mechanics

• After remaining stationary for 1.5 seconds you gain a buff.
• The buff grants 20% additive Armor.
• The buff grants 20% additive All Resistance.
• The buff grants 10% additive global Damage.
• The buff lingers for 7 Frames (93 ms) after you start moving.

Best use
Quite the useful passive, specifically early season when you appreciate the tankiness a lot. Especially great for channeling builds incorporating Deathwish and Etched Sigil. Once you have decent toughness from other sources though, and especially from Paragon, you should rotate it out for the multiplicative passives Audacity and Elemental Exposure.

• This skill fires in a straight line from your character towards your cursor position and explodes precisely 40 yards away.
• The final explosion deals the most damage by far but its AoE is really small. It deals 950% weapon damage twice in succession because of Unstable Scepter, for a total of 1900% weapon damage.
• The main orb deals 635% weapon damage to enemies it passes through while the shards deal 315% weapon damage to all enemies along the path.
• Frozen Orbs spawned by Wizardspike benefit from all the damage multipliers but won’t deal Area Damage.
• When Wizardspike procs from your own Frozen Orb, they overlap so well that it is only noticeable from the higher amount of frost shards emitted by the two stacked orbs.

• Being in Archon form grants a 30% global separate damage multiplier.
• Archon and The Swami stacks instances are additive with each other to form one global separate damage multiplier.
• Archon Slow Time inherits the Slow Time rune equipped on your skill bar. Crown of the Primus works on Slow Time. Slow Time and Slow Time effects stack for Exhaustion, Time Warp and Stretch Time runes.
• Archon Teleport benefits from both Aether Walker and Cosmic Strand.
• With Vyr's Amazing Arcana (2) Bonus, all Archon Abilities snapshot their Elemental Type upon Archon cast to your current highest element.
• Each Archon Abilities' damage is dynamic with its current Elemental Damage Bonus (according to its Elemental Type) which is not always your current highest element.
• Archon Strike's Attack Speed is fully dynamic with Increased Attack Speed. Any Attack Speed gained during Archon speeds up Archon Strike and any IAS lost slows it down.
• Archon Disintegration Wave tickrate is snapshotted upon entering Archon. Any Attack Speed gained (or lost) during Archon has no effect on its tickrate. The 50 stacks granted from Fazula's Improbable Chain are accounted for.

• The damage bonus from Black Hole Absolute Zero is additive with your Cold Elemental damage. As a consequence, "Cold skills deal X% more damage" affixes (Mainly found on Bracers and Amulet slots), grants a lower relative damage increase to builds using Absolute Zero.

• Hydra Mammoth Hydra only has one head, hence it does not work with The Typhon's Veil. This is why this rune is best used with the Legacy of Dreams setup presented at hand.
• Hydras does benefit from Pet damage bonuses but Attack Speed is not a damage multiplier for them. Unlike most pets, Attack Speed increases the rate of their attacks upon reaching Breakpoints instead.
• Mammoth Hydras target the closest monster and start to cast expanding Fire pools (the layers), dealing damage and expanding by 10 yards every 0.3 seconds, up to 50 yards.
• These layers spawn in front of the Hydras and take about 1.8 seconds to expand to their full length of 50 yards. Layers last for 3 seconds after they are fully expanded, for a total duration of 4.8 seconds. This means one layer ticks 16 times, once every 0.3 seconds.
• This mechanic creates a ramp-up period to reach maximum damage potential. This is why positioning Mammoth Hydras less than 5 yards in front of the monsters is extremely important because the layers reach the monsters and damage them instantly. If the monster is more than 5 yards away, you lose one tick per layer (6.25% damage), two ticks (12.5% damage) if the monster is more than 15 yards away… and so on.
• When the Mammoth Hydra expires after 15 seconds, or is replaced by a new one (in which case the oldest instance is replaced), its remaining layers are orphaned, meaning they do not benefit from your damage multipliers anymore.

• Star Pact have a 740% base Weapon Damage value and consume all remaining resource after the initial skill cost to add Weapon Damage to the base value.
• This means the base damage of 740% Weapon Damage can be increased to up to a total of 4080% with a perfect 167 maximum Arcane Power and a Channeling Pylon.
• Resource Cost Reduction only applies to the base cost of the skill, meaning that a 8% RCR roll (e.g. on your Shoulders) will add ~3 more Arcane Power to be consumed for a Star Pact cast. This adds 60% weapon damage or ~1.5% overall damage to the impact.

• Mirror Images cast some spells equipped on your skill bar with the assigned rune. They cast Flame Blades, Hydra and Explosive Blast.
• They last for 7 seconds, meaning they can each cast up to 7 skills by default as their Flame Blades and Explosive Blast have a base 60 FPA. Tasker and Theo works but only allow them to cast up to 9 skills (42 FPA Breakpoint). Slow Time Stretch Time also buffs their Attack Rate, allowing them to do up to 11 casts when combined with Tasker and Theo (36 FPA Breakpoint). However in the latter case, their first cast is going to be Slow Time so they do 10 effective casts.
• Mirror Images' HP pool takes a percentage of your HP pool as base (50% for Duplicates) then scales similarly to other Pets, adding your Vitality * 100 to this base HP and using your HP % as a separate multiplier. This means your HP pool double dips into your Mirror Images' HP pool.
• Like most Pets, Mirror Images scale their toughness with All Resistances while Armor and Damage Reduction sources have no effect besides Enforcer. They benefit from Dodge Chance (War Cry Veteran's Warning) and double dip All Resistances buffs like Mantra of Salvation. Inspiring Presence Life Regeneration is also double dipped by them. Mirror Images summoned while Shield Pylon is active do not get the invulnerability effect.
• Casts from Mirror Images proc your Arcane Power on Critical Hit if you have some on your equipment.
• They can be crowd controlled (frozen, jailed, knocked back...) but they are affected by Crowd Control Reduction on your equipment as well as Ignore Pain Mob Rule and Inner Sanctuary Temple of Protection Crowd Control Immunity.
• Mirror Images are not affected by Fragment of Destiny, Mirrorball and The Shame of Delsere.
• Mirror Images can proc the Firebird's Finery (2) Bonus Meteor upon dying a first time.
• Mirror Images have a pretty bad AI and often run away instead of attacking with Flame Blades. This is due to specific monster immunities and aggro mechanics, which affects some monster types but also Shielding and Juggernaut affixes as well as some Rift Guardians. The best way to avoid that is summoning them while surrounded by monsters or in a tight spot.

• Is a separate multiplier for any Arcane ability.
• Has a maximum cap of 125 targets which equals a 6.0 multiplier.
• The character is buffed when the "Wave" stops traveling. Any Arcane ability casted while the Wave is still traveling does not consume Arcane Attunement. This means Black Hole Spellsteal can be cast immediately after Wave of Force Arcane Attunement without consuming the resulting WoF stacks. This needs some practice to pull off!
• In combination with The Twisted Sword, only the first Arcane Energy Twister needs to be buffed by Wave of Force Arcane Attunement. The four additional merges do not remove the buff.