Energy Twister

Energy Twisters targeting Jondar the Necromancer.

Energy Twister is a Force Wizard skill unlocked at Level 13, summoning a twister made out of energy that hurts everything nearby.

Background

Combining magical force and air, the Wizard brings a continuous, but time limited, twister out of the aether to destroy enemies.

Skillrune Effects

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

<skill class="Wizard">Energy Twister</skill>

Skill Design

This skill sends out a twister from the Wizard, moving slowly away from the caster in roughly a straight line and doing moderate damage to everything it hits. It appears impressive, but it's high resource cost makes it only suitable for occasional use.

Synergies

Energy Twister benefits from the following Wizard passives: None added yet.

Development

Energy Twister was first shown at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard debuted, then named Tornado and placed at Tier IV on the Storm Skill Tree. For BlizzCon 2009, this skill was moved to Tier III and renamed Energy Twister. Why the name was changed is unknown, but the functionality remained roughly the same. Flux tried it out in the PvM demo:[1]

This one was impressive, but very unpredictable. The graphic is great; you can see that in the Blizzcon 2009 gameplay movie, and it does more in more or less a straight line, but without some sort of tank I didn’t find it very easy to hit enemies with. Arcane Orb was nearly as damaging, far easier to aim, and cheaper on the mana. This Wizard just has so many cool active spells to try out it’s impossible to get a handle on everything in a short play time.

Energy Twister was available in the BlizzCon 2010 demo, but wasn't one of the Wizard's starting skills.

Beta

Skill tiers were removed shortly before the beta started in September 2011, and Energy Twister became a level 11 skill. Flux thought it was nice to look at but underwhelming:[2]

Energy Twister looks pretty, and it’s kind of fun to play with. I took more screenshots of it than of most skills, since the visuals were nice. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well, and I’m not honestly sure what the skill is supposed to do well. The tornadoes aren’t any good at AoE damage (too small a radius), they take a long time to reach even close targets, they move erratically and can’t be aimed, they have some slight stunning effect that draws monsters in, but it’s not strong enough to have much effect, and they don’t deal that much damage even when they do hit something.

When the skill system was once again overhauled for the Beta Patch 13 in February 2012, Energy Twister was classified as an Arcane skill and moved to level 15. For March's Beta Patch 14, Energy Twister was dropped to level 13 but also nerfed a bit. Also, the category "Arcane" was renamed "Force".

Previous Versions

See the Wizard skill archive for more details on previous versions of Energy Twister (or Tornado) and other Wizard skills.

In Other Games

Energy Twister is an updated version of the Druid's skill Twister from Diablo II.

Media

Energy Twister can be seen in action on video here:

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

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Energy Twister specific gallery contents

• 

  An Energy Twister

• 

  Wizard fighting skeletons with twisters.

• 

  Male Wizard - March 2010

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
• Wizard Beta Skills Mega-report: Part Two -- IncGamers 5th Oct 2011
• Wizard Active Skills -- Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer primary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer secondary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer corpses

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer bloodandbone

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses