Arcane Orb

Arcane Orb is an Offensive Wizard skill unlocked at Level 8, which explodes on touch, delivering Arcane damage.

Background

Arcane Orb in action

The Wizard summons a glowing orb that upon touch will deal great damage to all foes and objects in its range.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Arcane Orb rune effects page for a more thorough summary of rune effects, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, screenshots, blue quotes, and much more.

Skill		Effect
Arcane Orb (Level 8)		Hurl an orb of pure energy that explodes when it hits, dealing 12 - 21 Arcane damage to all enemies within 10 yards. Cost: 35 Arcane Power
	Plasma Field	Increase the potency of the explosion to deal X - X Arcane damage.
	Supernova	Modify the orb to deal X - X Arcane damage to all enemies within X yards.
	Arcane Orbit	Create X Arcane Orb(s) that orbit you, exploding for X - X Arcane damage when enemies get close.
	Fusion	Reduce casting cost to X Arcane Power.
	Celestial Orb	The orb will pierce through targets, damaging any enemy it passes through dealing X - X Arcane damage.

Skill Design

A glowing orb of energy travels about 10 yards, before bursting in a nova of destruction. The spell looks something like the D2 Sorceress' Frozen Orb, but without the spray of ice spears as it flies across the room. It works like the Fireball of Diablo I.

This one very quickly became Flux's skill of choice for ranged attacks.[1] It dealt substantial damage with a big AoE splash, and had a reasonable mana cost. He is dubious about the listed 1-2 AoE damage, since a few of these into a group of enemies left no survivors.

The drawback to Arcane Orb is that it moves very slowly; more slowly than any other Wizard skill 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 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.

Synergies

Arcane Orb benefits from the following passive skills:

Temporal Flux is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 45, which adds a slowing effect to enemies the Wizard hits for Arcane spell damage.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Temporal Flux</skill>

Design

This seems like a hugely useful skill for any Wizard who uses much Arcane damage. Arcane's critical strike effect is silence, so having a way to also slow enemies with that spell type would be very effective.

Synergies

No synergies with any active skills or other Wizard passives are known.

Development

Passive skills have had a long and storied history. When Diablo III debuted at the WWI 2008, skill trees included passive skills, much like in Diablo II. In 2010, it was announced that passive skills had been renamed traits and separated out from active skills. At the July 2011 Press Event, Blizzard announced that passive skills were once again in the game, replacing the traits system. When traits were changed back to passive skills in early 2011, Temporal Flux was moved directly from a low-level trait to a level 21 passive.

Beta

When the beta started in September 2011, Temporal Flux was dropped to level 10. When passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Temporal Flux was moved up to level 45.

Previous Versions

• Temporal Flux (trait) - As a trait.

See the traits page for more details on previous versions of this and many other passive skills.

References

• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report — IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Wizard Passive Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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Development

Arcane Orb was first shown at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard debuted, on the Arcane Skill Tree at Tier III. By BlizzCon 2009, the damage had been ever so slightly tuned down, and so had mana cost. Flux talked about a missed opportunity:[2]

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.

Arcane Orb was available in the BlizzCon 2010 demo, but wasn't one of the Wizard's starting skills. Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Arcane Orb became a level 8 skill.

Previous Versions

See the Wizard skill archive for more details on previous versions of Arcane Orb and other Wizard skills.
Or see Arcane Orb (BlizzCon 2008) for the original version of this skill.

In Other Games

Arcane Orb seems to be a spiritual successor to Diablo II's Sorceress skill Frozen Orb, which also features a slow-moving globe floating across the screen, but includes a spray of ice spears.

Media

Arcane Orb can be seen in action on video here:

• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008
• Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects
• Gameplay: July 2011
• Video: August 2011 Wizard Skill Animations

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Arcane Orb specific gallery contents

• 

  Arcane Orb just exploded.

• 

  Skill animation sequence.

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Silva's Wizard Runestone Effects -- IncGamers 5th Sep 2011

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Template:Skill navbox Necromancer corpses

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer bloodandbone

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses