Electrocute

Electrocute is a Tier 3 skill unlocked for the Wizard at level 6, electrocuting an enemy over time.

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]

Electrocute Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Wizard
Skill Description:
Lightning arcs from the Wizard’s fingertips towards an enemy, electrocuting it for X-Y lightning damage.
Skill Details:
Type:	Direct DoT
Quantity:	5-15 damage
Effect:	Target
School:	Lightning
Mana cost:	8
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	Concentration
Cooldown:	1.5 sec
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

The Wizard opens up a whole between the physical an ethereal realms, and calls forth lightning arcs that grip an enemy and fries it until dead, or the Wizard releases her grip on the ethereal realm.

Skill Design

The description of this one is incomplete, since it got a hefty mana-per-second cost, and that makes it awesome for quick hits, especially to finish off moving targets, but not very suitable for big enemies.

Electrocute was not enabled to start with, but once a Wizard hit level 13 and earned a skill point, it could be used. It's great fun to use, and very useful too. Electrocute is basically a beam weapon, one that the Wizard fires as long as he keeps the mouse clicked. You can not move while using Electrocute, but you're unlikely to want to, since it locks on and keeps zapping the target until it's dead, or you're out of mana. The second happens before the first more often than you'd like, and it's basically unusable on bosses, or even moderately tough targets like Dune Dervishes and Dark Demons, since mana would run out long before their health. Other Wizard spells deal far more damage per mana, but few are as much fun to use as this one.

Electrocute was simply awesome for small stuff, especially on evasive enemies like the fluttering Sand Wasps, or those last one or two Fallen Imps who always scattered away from the battle when their Overseers and Shamans went down. Just aim at the monster, or anywhere near it, and the beam locks on, draining that monster steadily. Smaller monsters usually died in less than a second, and I found this one far quicker than the higher damage Arcane Orb to clean up groups of weak enemies. Some screenshots show this one chaining to multiple targets, but higher levels in this spell only listed more damage.

Note that lightning damage critical hits will stun targets. This one stuns (very briefly) at least every two seconds, so there must be a lot of hit checks going on, to trigger the critical hit so frequently. That stunning is, of course, highly useful when you're locked onto an enemy trying to charge into melee range.

Skill Rank Table

Electrocute snakes through some Skeletal Executioners.

Rank 1: Deals 1-15 lightning damage.

Only Rank 1 is currently known.

Please observe the description for this spell seems to be associated with the old version of Electrocute, that worked more like Diablo 2 Chain Lightning, with a one-off mana cost and a one-off damage. The damage listed here is the one in the client, but could be something completely different.

Synergies

Electrocute benefits directly from the following traits:

Glass Cannon: Increases damage done by spells and increases armor.
Intimidation: Increases damage done and reduces vendor costs.
Quickening: Increases spell casting speed.
Beast Hunter: Damage bonus against beasts.
Demonsbane: Damage bonus against Demons.
Just...Stay...Dead!: Damage bonus against undead.
Power Surge: Increase critical strike damage.
Penetrating Spells: Reduces the resistances of your target to your spells by 20%.

Skill Rune Effects

None known.

Development

Electrocute was first shown at BlizzCon 2008, as a new version of Diablo 2 Chain Lightning, but with more of a Dungeons & Dragons inspiration, where the lightning art could hit a given number of targets at lesser and lesser damage. This was changed in the demo displayed at BlizzCon 2009, where it instead became more like what the name suggests: an electrocution of one selected target.

The change seemed to have been done briefly before BlizzCon, since the description of the spell had not been completely updated, it didn't show a mana/sec cost, and a damage/sec stat. It's possible the problems Flux found with the spell[1] might be addressed, dealing more consistent damage per second compared to the mana spent. Either way, the spell - in some iteration - is assumed to still be available in Blizzard's internal game build today.

Previous Versions:

Electrocute (BlizzCon 2008)

Trivia

This spell was originally more inspired by Chain Lightning from Dungeons & Dragons, but later changed to a completely new design, electrocuting one target at a time.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

Old version of Electrocute hit multiple enemies.
Electrocute shot from inside a Slow Time bubble.
Electrocute snakes through some Skeletal Executioners.
Electrocute chews through some monsters.

References