Storm Skill Tree

Template:Class navbox The Wizard's skills are divided into three skill trees, each of which has about 18 known spells. These were first seen at Blizzcon 2008, and while they are very much subject to change during the game's continued development, viewing them in this state is still informative. The three trees are:

Diablo 3 Skill Trees

Unlike the skill trees in Diablo II, the trees in Diablo III are not focused on just one aspect of a character. All known D3 skill trees have a wide variety of skills, with more passive than active skills, and all allow for a variety of play styles.

All active skills in the BlizzCon build were capped at 1 skill point (or rank, as skill levels are called in D3), while most passives went up to 15 points. This will not be the case in the final game; active skills will allow more than 1 point, and passives may have different maximum ranks, to allow better game balancing. Know that skills will be modified, that some will be removed, that others will be added, and that the numbers are almost certain to change.

Skill runes could only be socketed in active skills, in the Blizzcon build. This may or may not remain true in the final game.

Tier 1 Skills

These skills are available for use as soon as new Wizard is created.

Charged Bolt

Active Skill
Description: Launch a volley of electric bolts. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.
Max Rank: 1
Rank 1: 3 bolts. Each deals 1-8 damage.
Mana cost 8

When tested in the BlizzCon 2008 build, the bolts seemed to come out with a wider spread than they do in Diablo II. They were useful to hit monsters to the sides as well as straight ahead, but were not as good to land multiple hits to a target straight ahead, either very close or a few yards distant. They did not travel very far, and not at all in a wave ahead of the Wizard.

Thunderstruck

Passive Skill
Description: Increases the critical hit chance of all lightning spells by 10%. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.
Max Rank: 15

The spells did not display their Critical Hit % chance in the BlizzCon build, but it's assumed that they will in the final game. It's also a good bet that there will be items that boost critical chance from skills, as part of the D3 effort to provide a variety of valuable mods on weapons for non-combat characters.

Empowered Magic

Passive Skill
Description: Increases the effect of willpower on your spell damage by 20%.
Max Rank: 15

One of the design goals in Diablo III is to make all of the attributes useful to each character class. As this skill makes clear, Willpower will factor in on the Wizard's spell damage.

Lightning Speed

Passive Skill
Description:Increases casting speed by 3%
Rank: 15

It's not clear if this skill increases the casting speed for all spells cast by the Wizard, or just ones from this tree. From the wording, it sounds like it affects all of the character's spells, so it seems that most Wizards will put some points into this one, whichever tree they specialize in.

Nothing is yet known about how useful or common spell casting speed boosts will be from items.

Tier II Skills

Tier 2 skills do not require any amount of points to be spent in the tree to enable them. (There were rumors that 5 points were required, but that was not the case in the BlizzCon build.

Storm Armor

Active Skill
Description:Surround yourself in electrical energy. Electrical bolts are automatically fired at attackers.
Max Rank: 1
- Rank 1: Electrical bolts deal 1-8 damage.
Mana cost: 15

This skill does not seem to offer any protection; just a sort of passive offensive attack. It's not known how long it persists for, or how much the damage will scale up.

Frost Nova

Chill out!

Active Skill
Description:An explosion of ice pelts nearby enemies. Projectiles have a 25% chance of a critical hit. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
Max Rank: 1
- Rank 1: 1-3 damage, 25% chance of critical hit.
Mana cost: 25
Cool down: 12 seconds

The long cool down on this skill indicates that the D3 Team means it to be used as a sort of "panic button," rather than a killing attack. The boosted % of critical chance is more about potentially freezing enemies than killing them with a lovely explosion of ice. Storm Power and Lethal Energy will both add to this skill's lethality by adding to its critical strike chance and damage.

Deep Freeze

Passive Skill
Description:Increases the critical hit chance of all cold spells. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
Max Rank: 15
Rank 1: Cold spell critical hit damage increased by 5%.

Rather than giving the Wizard a Glacial Spike-like instant freeze spell, the D3 team seems to be granting that possibility with critical hits on a variety of non-freezing cold spells.

Power Armor

Passive Skill
Description: Increases the damage dealt by your storm armor charged bolts.
Max Rank: 15
- Rank 1: Increases damage by 10%.

Static Charge

Passive Skill
Description: Converts a percentage of all damage taken into mana.
Max Rank: 15
- Rank 1: Convert 5% of all damage taken into mana.

An interesting variation on Mana Shield; this sounds like it's only of use to add mana, without any protective properties.

Tier III Skills

A Wizard must be at least Clvl 10, and have spent at least 10 skill points in the Storm skill tree before he/she is able to put points into any of the skills at this tier.

Electrocute

Active Skill
Description: Lightning arcs from the wizard’s fingertips towards enemies, electrocuting them. Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 sec.
Rank 1: Deals 4-5 damage to up to 2 targets. Lightning critical hits stun for 2 seconds.
Mana cost: 8

This spell works like beam weapons in most FPS games, locking onto a target and bending to keep it in the lightning zone even as the enemy moves around. It can chain to a second target, and during the BlizzCon 2008 demonstration, this spell was seen upgraded with a multi-strike rune, enabling it to strike additional targets at once. A Lethality Rune was also shown in conjunction with Electrocute, which caused some enemies to explode in an electric Nova upon death, dealing damage to nearby monsters. This is the same sort of death monsters suffer when they perish from a lightning critical hit.

Ray of Frost

Active Skill
Description: Project a beam of cold energy. Critical hits from cold damage freeze targets.
Max Rank: 1
- Rank 1: Deals 6 cold damage/second.
Mana cost: 16 mana per sec.

This skill is similar to the fire-based Disintegrate spell; however, it does not pass through targets or increase damage over time. This spell seems useful for freezing and keeping enemies at bay, adding to the Wizard's arsenal of offensive spells that double as protection against melee creatures.

Static Residue

Passive Skill
Description: Enemies damaged by your lightning spells discharge additional lightning damage to nearby enemies for 3 seconds.
Max Rank: 15
- Rank 1: Targets discharge 1-3 lightning damage per second to nearby enemies. Lasts for 3 seconds.

An add-on passive, this one does nothing by itself, but adds lightning damage that hits everything nearby, when any other lightning skill is used. With deaths from lightning critical hits and various multi-target lightning skills, the strength of that element in attack seems likely to be the ability to hit many things at once.

Lethal Energy

Passive Skill
Description: Increases the chance to score critical hits with melee and spell attacks.
Rank: 15
- Rank 1: Increases critical hit chance 5%.

As with other skills in the Wizard's tree (and those of the other characters), boosting Critical Hits is a very powerful technique in D3.

Improved Charged Bolt

Passive Skill
Description: Increase the number of bolts released by your charged bolt spell.
Max Rank: 15
- Rank 1: Increases the number of bolts by 1.

This one was not seen at Blizzcon 2008, but it sounds like an interesting upgrade. It's unclear why anyone would put more than 1 point into regular Charged Bolt though, with this one waiting at a higher level. Also keep in mind that lightning critical hits stun enemies in D3, so imagine how effective this spell could be with a high level of critical adding damage and stunning the monsters as they bathe in the river of Charged Bolts flowing out from the Wizard.

Tier IV Skills

A wizard must invest 15 points in the Storm tree before the skills in this tier become available.

Tornado

We're not in Kansas anymore...

Active Skill
Description: Summon a large tornado that damages everything in its path.
Max Rank: 1
Mana cost: 15

Akin to the Druid's Twister skill from Diablo II, these tornadoes are formed from pure energy. In the gameplay trailer released at BlizzCon 2008, multiple tornadoes are cast one after another, each lasting for close to 5 seconds. Their path is semi-random, and they bounce off of enemies, heading in another direction when they hit once, instead of passing over targets and dealing multiple hits, as do the Druid's tornadoes in D2.

As in DII with the Druid, the best use of the tornadoes will likely be multiple, concentrated casts in a small area packed with enemies, to ensure the most damage in the shortest period of time. Higher levels of the skill may increase their size or may simply increase raw damage. Epic Storm will increase the number of simultaneous tornadoes you can cast, and Lethal Energy will increase the chance to score critical strikes.

It's not clear what type of damage a tornado deals, so what bonuses the critical hits would deal is not known.

Blizzard

Active Skill
Description: Call down shards of ice to pelt an area dealing X damage per second. Critical hits from cold damage freezes targets.
Max Rank: 1
- Rank 1: Deals 6-10 cold damage per second. Lasts 3 seconds.
Mana cost: 70

The spell that had to be in the game, this one is visually improved in D3. There is now a cloud shown above the enemies, from which large chunks of ice crash down to earth.

Storm Power

Passive Skill
Description: Increase damage of all lightning and ice spells.
Max Rank: 15

Epic Storms

Passive Skill
Description: Increases size of Blizzard and number of twisters you can have for your energy twister.
Max Rank: 15

An interesting mastery skill, this one boosts two different spells (but not everything in the tree), though by now much remains to be seen.

Tier V Skills

There was a space for these in the Blizzcon build, but no skill icons were found on that line. There will surely be some in the final game, or else existing skills will be redistributed so some occupy higher level tiers on the skill tree.