Arcane Orb

Arcane Orb is a Wizard Tier 4 skill unlocked at level 10, exploding on touch, delivering Arcane damage.

Background

Diablo III Active Skill [e]
Arcane Orb
Used by:	Wizard
Enabled at:	Clvl 10
Skill Description
An orb of pure energy deals X-Y on contact and an additional Z-A arcane damage to all enemies in the blast area.
Type:	Direct Damage/AoE
Resource Use:	Costs Arcane Power
Skill Rune Effects
Alabaster rune:	Unknown
Crimson rune:	Unknown
Golden rune:	Unknown
Indigo rune:	Unknown
Obsidian rune:	Unknown

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

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.

Skill Rank Table

• Rank 1: 11-16 direct arcane damage, 1-2 AoE damage.
• Rank 2: 13-19 direct arcane damage, 2-4 AoE damage.
• Rank 3: 15-22 direct arcane damage, 3-6 AoE damage. (A)
• Rank 4: 17-25 direct arcane damage, 4-8 AoE damage. (A)
• Rank 5: 19-28 direct arcane damage, 5-10 AoE damage. (A)

(A) = Assumed

Trait Synergies

Arcane Orb benefits directly from the following Wizard 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.
• Temporal Flux: Enemies that have been hit by your Arcane spells are slowed down by 25% for 3 seconds.
• Power Surge: Increase critical strike damage.
• Penetrating Spells: Reduces the resistances of your target to your spells by 20%.

Note: The current trait list is very out-of-date and will no doubt be overhauled before game release.

Skill Rune Effects

• No rune effects for Arcane Orb are known.

A runed version of Arcane Orb has been seen in video here, but it's unclear what the effect is.

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.

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

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