Electrocute

Electrocute is a Signature Wizard skill unlocked at Level 6, which electrocutes an enemy over time.

This is a Signature spell. Signature spells cost 1 less Arcane Power every time you gain a level.

Background

Electrocute in action

The Wizard opens up a hole between the physical and 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 Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Electrocute 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}}}]] Primary Signature spell

15

{{{desc}}}

	Ball Lightning	Creates a streak of lightning that pierces targets, hitting all enemies in its path for 1 - 70 Lightning damage.
	Chain Lightning	Increases the maximum number of jumps to 10 enemies.
	Arc Lightning	Blast a cone of lightning that causes 1 - 65 Lightning damage to all affected targets.
	Surge of Power	Gain 7 Arcane Power for every target hit by Electrocute.
	Forked Lightning	Critical hits with this skill cause an explosion of 5 charged bolts in random directions, dealing 1 - 82 Lightning damage to any targets hit.

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

Electrocute Video

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

Skill Design

The description of this skill is incomplete, since it has 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 she 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.

Synergies

Electrocute benefits from the following Wizard passives:

Prodigy is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 20, which grants Arcane Power every time the Wizard casts a Signature spell.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Prodigy</skill>

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.

Beta

Prodigy was not seen until it showed up in the Diablo III beta as a level 15 passive. When passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Prodigy was moved to level 20.

References

• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Wizard Passive Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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Arcane Dynamo is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 29, which powers up the Wizard's next non-signature spell by using Signature spells.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Arcane Dynamo</skill>

Synergies

Signature spells are required to gain Flashes of Light.

• Signature spells

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.

Beta

Arcane Dynamo was not seen until it showed up in the Diablo III beta as a level 28 passive. For the Beta Patch 13, it became a level 29 skill, and when passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Arcane Dynamo was moved up to level 55.

References

• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Wizard Passive Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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Development

Electrocute snakes through some Skeletal Executioners.

Electrocute was first shown at BlizzCon 2008, where the lightning could hit a string of targets at lesser and lesser damage. Back then, it was at Tier II on the Storm Skill Tree.

This was changed in the demo displayed at BlizzCon 2009, where it became focused on a single 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. Flux found it fun but very expensive:[1]

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 I found this one unusable on bosses, or even moderately tough targets like Dune Dervishes and Dark Demons, since my mana would run out long before their hit points. Other Wizard spells deal far more damage per mana, but few are as much fun to use as this one.

Unfortunately, by BlizzCon 2010 this spell still had a disturbingly high resource cost, as mentioned by Flux:[2]

It’s not very high damage, so you’ll need to cook for a while on tougher targets, and at low levels this one isn’t very useful against bosses or champions; it’s just to AP expensive for big enemies; you’ll be out of resource before they’re out of hit points.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Electrocute became a level 6 skill.

Previous Versions

See the Wizard skill archive for more details on previous versions of Electrocute and other Wizard skills.

In Other Games

Electrocute is an updated version of Diablo II's Sorceress skill Chain Lightning, but with more of a Dungeons & Dragons inspiration.

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

Electrocute can be seen in action on video here:

• Cinematic: Wizard
• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008
• Gameplay: July 2011

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Electrocute specific gallery contents

• 

  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

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• BlizzCon 2010 Wizard 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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