LoD Energy Twister Wizard Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing LoD Energy Twister Wizard in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
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), and precise timing with your burst
period which comes at the Arcane cycle of
Convention of Elements (CoE).
Your main tactic during fights will begin by attracting the attention of
enemies. Try to do so simply through movement and without attacking, since
Energy Twisters (either manual or spawned by
Etched Sigil) will
proc
Ranslor's Folly and ruin a pull. Then, cast a
Wave of Force in the biggest density pull you can form, and do a MANUAL
Energy Twister in the center of the fight. This will result in the
highest possible
Arcane Attunement stack, and the buff getting applied to
the correct (the manual)
Energy Twister cast, which — due to its
self-casted nature — will be able to proc Area Damage. The manually cast
Energy Twister will ideally be spawned with 2 seconds remaining on your
Lightning CoE rotation, so the skill will be fully buffed for the entirety of
the following Arcane cycle.
Then, begin to channel Arcane Torrent; ideally just for the period in
between the end of the Lightning CoE cycle and just before the Cold CoE cycle.
This will net you the ideal amount of automated casts by
Etched Sigil.
Ideally, you will have formed the maximized Twisters exactly prior to the Arcane
rotation of
Convention of Elements, and will enjoy the fully buffed
devastation throughout the cycle.
This playstyle only slightly alters at single target Rift Guardian fights,
where you can continuously channel Arcane Torrent without fear of losing
out on Area Damage procs. On Guardians with adds, try to adhere to the rotation
above.
Always maintain the passive buffs of Storm Armor and
Magic Weapon, and reposition smartly around the battlefield with
Teleport.
Skills and Runes
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 will not 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.
With that said, other rune options for
Energy Twister are certainly
viable — experiment as you see fit, and do not forget to adjust elemental
damage on gear as you do so.
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.
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
Rotation section above).
Magic Weapon offers an attractive, long-lasting damage buff by default,
which branches out even more nicely into defense via the rune
Deflection
— highly desirable in order to safeguard your
Squirt's Necklace
damage buff. Note that this protective effect is doubled via the worn
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, if you choose to wear it.
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.
Passives
Added with similar reasoning to Magic Weapon
Deflection (mainly
Squirt's Necklace buff maintenance),
Galvanizing Ward introduces a
solid damage buffer that benefits from the doubled effectiveness via
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer.
Audacity brings a sizable 30% multiplicative damage increase against
enemies within 15 yards — a near-melee range prerequisite that you fulfill
naturally through the playstyle of the build, as enemies close in on you while
you channel.
Elemental Exposure rounds out your passive selection with a final,
decent damage increase. Notice that the passive bumps damage in 5% increments per
element used; you fulfill the fire with
Flame Ward, lightning with
Storm Armor and arcane with
Wicked Wind. 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. If you are playing in
Hardcore, this would be the passive to switch out for a cheat death from
Unstable Anomaly, as it arguably brings the least benefit of the four.
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. If you feel that the additional movement speed does not bring enough
value to the build, you can swap this passive out for additional tankiness from
Blur or
Unwavering Will, or buff up your damage via the
interaction between
Conflagration and
Flame Ward.
Reverse Archon Variant
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Another option for this build is the so-called "Reverse Archon" playstyle,
which takes advantage of Archon skill simply as means of a powerful
damage buff for your main nuke,
Energy Twister. While there is no focus
on Archon damage, or indeed any expectation to kill monsters during Archon uptime
(it is strictly treated as a buff), you will generate Archon stacks due to the
Fazula's Improbable Chain mechanics.
The Swami keeps your Archon
stacks for 20 seconds outside of Archon form, meaning every second
Convention of Elements full cycle (16 seconds in total per full cycle, 4
seconds per element) you can be supremely buffed by these temporary bonuses.
With optimized cooldown reduction (see this variant's paragraph in the
gear page for more information), you will be
able to enter at the Cold CoE cycle and exit at the Fire CoE cycle, giving
you a few seconds to prepare the
Energy Twister pull as described in the
general build above (you spend your time in
Archon drawing monster aggro
and setting up the fight). You then have one burst cycle on the Arcane rotation
and one Arcane rotation without Archon stacks, and re-enter Archon at the next
Cold cycle, repeating the process all over again (this is the so-called 48
second cycle).
The remainder of your skill usage is identical to the base build: keeping up
the shields ( Storm Armor,
Deflection), grouping monsters with
the manual cast of
Energy Twister, and channeling
Flame Ward once
the fight is set up. Note the change in the passives from
Illusionist to
Evocation.
It goes without saying, but this timing-intensive, high skill cap alteration is only meant to push this build to the outer limits of its power, and is not recommended for casual play.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
- 30 Oct. 2021: Enriched the guide with additional information.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 02 Apr. 2021: Skill and passive selection revised.
- 20 Nov. 2020: Guide added.
More Wizard Guides
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This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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