Ray of Frost

Ray of Frost is an Offensive Wizard skill unlocked at Level 5. It fires a straight beam of cold that chills and damages a single enemy, while draining Arcane Power steadily.

Ray of Frost had only been seen in videos until the February 2012 Beta Patch 13 and the huge skill and runestone revision that patch introduced to the beta. At that point Ray of Frost was moved down to Clvl 5, giving players a chance to try it out.

Function

The skill is fun to use and very effective against single targets, with good damage and the slowing property. However the Arcane Power drain is quite high, and thus the damage per second is much lower than a number of other early-game Wizard skills. The fact that the skill does not pierce, as the similar Disintegrate skill does, makes it less useful against large groups of enemies.

None of the skillrune effects are available to try out in the beta.

Beta Screenshots

The skill looks largely unchanged from earlier versions; see images and video of that further down this page.

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Skillrune Effects

See the Ray of Frost 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

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[[{{{name}}}]] Secondary

2

{{{desc}}}

Black Ice

[e] Enemies who die leave a patch of ice on the ground that causes 385% weapon damage per second as Cold to enemies moving through it.

Snow Blast

[e] Damage increases slowly over 1.5 seconds to inflict a maximum of 715% weapon damage per second as Cold.

Cold Blood

[e] Reduce casting cost to 3 Arcane Power per second.

Sleet Storm

[e] Create a swirling storm of sleet dealing 150% weapon damage per second as Cold to all enemies caught within it.

Numb

[e] Increase enemy slow amount to 50% for 8.5 seconds, but damage is reduced to 220% weapon damage per second as Cold.

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

Ray of Frost Video

A video of Ray of Frost and all of its rune effects can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel.

Skill Design

This skill targets much like Disintegrate, but trades the piercing of that skill for a slowing cold effect. This makes Ray of Frost excellent against single targets, but much less damaging on the whole, especially against large groups of enemies.

Synergies

Ray of Frost benefits from the following Wizard passives:

Skill	Unlocked	Description

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[[{{{name}}}]]

16

{{{desc}}}

{{{icon}}}

[[{{{name}}}]] See: Signature spell

55

{{{desc}}}

Development

Ray of Frost was first seen at BlizzCon 2008, but only in the gameplay movie; the Wizard used it against the trap laid out by the Skeleton King. It was available in the gameplay demo at BlizzCon 2009, but was unfortunately too high level to try out by the fans. The skill is assumed to still be available in Blizzard's internal game build today.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Ray of Frost became a level 21 skill. Not until the Beta Patch 13 in February 2012 did fans get to use it, thanks to the much lowered Clvl requirement.

Previous Versions

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

Trivia

This is one of the spells that seem to be coming from the dungeons & Dragons inspiration we've seen in Diablo III. The new D3 Team obviously spent a lot of time in mom's basement....

Media

Ray of Frost can be seen in action on video here:

• Cinematic: Wizard
• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Ray of Frost specific gallery contents

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  Ray of Frost used in the middle of the Skeleton King trap.

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  Casting the spell before the hordes of skeletons arrive.

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  Ray of Frost with all five rune effects.

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 Active Skills -- Diablo III 12th Sep 2011

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