Ice Armor

Ice Armor is a Utility Wizard skill unlocked at Level 2, slowing movement and attack speeds of enemies attacking the character and damaging them a little as well.

This is an Armor spell. Only one Armor spell can be active at a time.

Background

Ice Armor in action

Lacking physical armor, a Wizard needs magical protection in dangerous places. This Ice Armor will have a chilling impact upon anyone striking her, cooling them to the point where their movements becomes slower, and limiting their ability to move around as well as delivering some pain from the cold.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Ice Armor 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
Ice Armor Armor (Level 2)		Surround yourself in a barrier of ice that increases armor by 50%, and causes 7 - 9 Cold damage to melee attackers, chilling them for 2 seconds. Lasts 120 seconds. Cost: 25 Arcane Power This is an Armor spell. Only one Armor spell can be active at a time.
	Jagged Ice	Attackers take 30 - 38 Cold damage and are chilled for 5.5 seconds.
	Chilling Aura	Lower the temperature of the air around you. Nearby enemies are chilled, slowing their movement and attack speed, for 3.0 seconds.
	Frozen Storm	A whirling storm of ice builds around you that deals 57 - 71 Cold damage per second for 16 seconds after casting Ice Armor.
	Crystallize	Whenever you are struck by a melee attack the bonus armor granted by Ice Armor is increased by 85% for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 3 times.
	Ice Reflect	Attacks have a 55% chance to create a Frost Nova on the attacker dealing 78 - 85 Cold damage.

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

Skill Design

Pretty straightforward skill. Useful especially when trying to run away from things, but also if the Wizard is occupied in melee combat, it will lower the damage she takes in a fray. It likely won't increase Armor or any other defensive stat.

The duration of the spell was shown as almost exactly 3/8 duration with 2 minutes left so it's safe to assume the duration is 6-8 minutes, but we do not know what the exact duration of the spell is.

Synergies

Ice Armor benefits from the following passive skills:

Galvanizing Ward is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 40, which increases the duration of Armor spells and grants Life regeneration.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Galvanizing Ward</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

Galvanizing Ward was not seen until it showed up in the Diablo III beta as a level 23 passive. For Beta Patch 13, it became a level 24 skill, and when passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Galvanizing Ward was moved up to level 40 and nerfed heavily: Life gain dropped from 889.68 to 310.097 per second.

References

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

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Development

Ice Armor was first shown in August 2009 at GamesCom, seen in the gameplay demo. It was then not known if the spell was a Wizard skill or a shrine effect. The spell was seen more clearly at BlizzCon 2009, where it was a Tier I skill on the Storm Skill Tree. Unfortunately, this skill was unnecessary in the PvP demo, as Flux explained:[1]

As with the other defensive skills, this was just not needed at Blizzcon. I cast it a few times between battles, but never took any hits when I had it active.

It was still in the game as of BlizzCon 2010, but moved to Tier 2 in the new tree-less skill system. Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Ice Armor became a level 2 skill.

Media

Ice Armor can be seen in action on video here:

• Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Ice Armor specific gallery contents

• 

  Ice Armor active.

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