Slow Time

Slow Time is a Utility Wizard skill unlocked at Level 16, creating a bubble where time flows slower for all enemies and their projectiles.

It's a signature skill of the Wizard.

Background

Slow Time in action

Slow Time is presumably one of the spells the Wizard learned from the Ancient Repositories of Caldeum where she was interrupted by Valthek.

Messing with timespace is something not even the Vizjerei do any more, and is considered one of the most dangerous forms of magic.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Slow Time 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.

Icon	Skill	Description

{{{icon}}}

[[{{{name}}}]] Defensive

16

{{{desc}}}

|

| Time Warp | Enemies caught in the bubble of warped time take 140% more damage. |-

|

| Miasma | Slow Time effects cling to enemies for 14 seconds after they have left the bubble. |-

|

| Time Shell | Reduces the size of the Slow Time bubble to 10 yards, but increases the effect, slowing movement and attack speed of enemies by 60% while inside the bubble. |-

|

| Perpetuity | Reduce cooldown to 16 seconds. |-

|

| Stretch Time | Time is sped up for any friendly heroes standing in the bubble, increasing attack and cast speed by 140%. |-

|}

Note: Information is based on a level 60 character and rank 7 runestones.

Slow Time Video

A video of Slow Time can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel.

Skill Design

Slow Time creates a bubble that surrounds the Wizard. Any enemies or enemy projectiles that enter the bubble are greatly slowed. The Wizard, her spell projectiles, and her allies are not affected by the slow time bubble, giving them a huge advantage over the greatly slowed enemies. The bubble remains where it was cast, persisting for several seconds, but the Wizard can move as soon as the spell is cast, though if she moves outside the bubble monsters may again target her without their shots or attacks being slowed.

It's assumed that some boss monsters (and their projectiles?) will be immune to the slowing effect, but this is not yet known, and is subject to further balancing anyway.

This spell has been used with Wave of Force to first slow enemy projectiles, and then throwing them back at the enemy.

Synergies

Slow Time with unknown (but pretty) rune effect

• No synergies with any of the Wizard passives are yet known.

Development

Slow Time was first seen at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard was unveiled. It was updated ever so slightly in the demo shown at BlizzCon 2009, where it had moved down one tier in the Arcane Skill Tree, to Tier IV.

At BlizzCon 2010, Slow Time was one of the Wizard's skills in the PvP demo. Flux found it useful:[1]

One of the most useful skills in the Arena. Not just for the Wizard, but for the whole team. A Wizard who managed to cast one of these out in the center of the arena, where most of the early round action took place, gave her team a huge advantage. Enemy Barbs were nearly frozen in it, Mongrels were basically stuck there for the duration of the spell, and even other casters hated to be inconvenienced. It wasn’t as much on defense, since there weren’t many projectiles flying in the demo, but it was great to block movement.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Slow Time became a level 16 skill.

Previous Versions

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

Media

Slow Time can be seen in action on video here:

• Cinematic: Wizard
• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008
• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2010 (in the Arena)
• Gameplay: July 2011

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Slow Time specific gallery contents

• 

  Shooting Electrocute out of a Slow Time bubble.

• 

  Slow Time with Wave of Force to throw spells back at casters.

• 

  Disintegrate cast from within a time bubble.

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• BlizzCon 2010 PvP Hands-on Report
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Silva's Wizard Runestone Effects -- IncGamers 5th Sep 2011
• Wizard Active Skills -- Diablo III 12th Sep 2011

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