DMO Energy Twister Wizard Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Energy Twister Wicked Wind Arcane Torrent Flame Ward 1 Slow Time Time Warp 2 Wave of Force Arcane Attunement 3 Teleport Safe Passage 4 Storm Armor Power of the Storm
Passive Skills
Audacity Unwavering Will Elemental Exposure Illusionist

As a Delsere's Magnum Opus set build, you have to constantly keep in mind your dependence on dropping Slow Times that regularly envelop your priority targets. Some leeway was given with later reworks to DMO (you do not need to be in the Slow Time radius to gain damage reduction, and affected enemies are more susceptible to damage for 5 whole seconds after exiting the bubble), but with the built-in resets coming from your manual casts of Energy Twister, you should make a point to regularly apply Slow Times across the battlefield. Your DPS mechanic comes from the interplay between channeling Arcane Torrent (which casts Energy Twisters via the worn Etched Sigil) and their merging and damage improvement via the rune Raging Storm (granted by the sword).

Your main tactic during fights will begin by attracting the attention of enemies (try to do it simply through movement and without attacking, since Energy Twisters will proc Ranslor's Folly and ruin a pull). Then, cast a Wave of Force Arcane Attunement in the biggest density pull you can form, and do a MANUAL Energy Twister in the center of the fight. Afterwards you are free to channel Arcane Torrent for the automated casts by Etched Sigil. Ideally, you will have formed the maximized Twisters exactly prior to an Arcane rotation of Convention of Elements.

Always maintain the passive buff of Storm Armor, and reposition smartly around the battlefield with Teleport.

Your primary damage dealer is found in Energy Twister, a former group favorite that, while under the radar of many, retains most of its monstrous AoE DPS properties. You will be getting the rune with the most damage potential, Raging Storm, for free from the updated The Twisted Sword powers — empowering and enhancing the number of twisters that are able to collide and converge. To ensure you won't need to focus on manual collision of Energy Twisters, you will take the rune Wicked Wind and leave the Arcane Torrent- Etched Sigil combo to produce them automatically.

As mentioned above, you will need to take Arcane Torrent, as its channeling mechanic interacts directly with the free Energy Twister spam of Etched Sigil. Rune-wise, take the damage reduction of Flame Ward, as damage output will not be the focus of this skill slot — simply the automated production of your main damage dealer, Energy Twister.

Slow Time is integral to DMO setups, amplifying the damage of multiple skills against affected enemies, as well as cutting incoming damage by 60%. You can either bolster its damage reduction angle by selecting the Exhaustion rune (safer), or its damage boosting via Time Warp (our default recommendation).

Wave of Force will be taken in the build as a damage amplifier for Wicked Wind, since the rune Arcane Attunement provides an immensely strong, independent damage multiplier to Arcane spells. This skill forms the basis of your burst rotation, so be very careful in its application (see the Gameplay section above).

As consistent means of protection, you will be adding Storm Armor to the build. With a fire-and-forget duration of 10 minutes and a negligible damage proc, it can be easily overlooked if not for the massive damage reduction properties of Halo of Karini (see this build's gear page for more information). You will be taking the rune Power of the Storm for the Resource Cost Reduction, but you can also consider alterations such as Shocking Aspect for the superior uptime of the procs for the Karini buff, or Scramble for the additional movement speed.

Last but not least, Teleport will round out your skill selection with valuable maneuverability across the battlefield; either to engage, reposition, or simply move away from an unfavorable fight. The preferred rune is the protective Safe Passage, which — coupled with the cooldown-resetting powers of the Illusionist passive — allows you to make use the damage reduction effect with great frequency.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

Audacity brings an impressive 30% multiplicative damage increase against enemies within 15 yards — a fairly easy proc for the start-and-stop playstyle of this build.

Strengthening your defensive bulwark, Unwavering Will will complement your semi-static fighting style and add significant Toughness with the 20% Armor and All Resistance buff.

Elemental Exposure is taken to bolster your damage through your myriad of elemental damage sources. Notice that the passive bumps damage in 5% increments per element used; you fulfill the fire with Flame Ward, lightning with Storm Armor, arcane with Arcane Attunement. The final bump will come from the damage type of your weapon, The Twisted Sword — a lucky roll (or reroll) of the base damage from another type (i.e. physical or arcane) into cold will bring the last piece of the damage buff.

Another powerful survival tool is hidden in your Illusionist passive, feeding additional CDR into your Slow Time and turning Teleport from a strategic cooldown into a constantly available asset. The requirement of 15% life taken per hit is calculated prior to mitigation and translates into “any hit taken” in high Greater Rifts. The additional 30% movement speed after using some of the build's core abilities is just icing on the cake.