Lightning Arcane Torrent Wizard Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Arcane Torrent Static Discharge Teleport Calamity 1 Explosive Blast Chain Reaction 2 Blizzard Snowbound 3 Magic Weapon Conduit 4 Ice Armor Crystallize
Passive Skills
Paralysis Audacity Unstable Anomaly Illusionist

Similarly to other Tal Rasha builds, you will be using spells of different elements to obtain the set's valuable defensive and offensive bonuses. The build hinges entirely on Manald Heal damage, using its entire rotation to speed up the procs and increase defense and utility as much as possible. In Greater Rifts, the lightning portion of the Tal Rasha bonus will come from channeling Arcane Torrent Static Discharge; this skill will also be your means of delivering Manald Heal damage, since it will also trigger Paralysis. The remainder of your skills will focus on fast and reliable Tal Rasha upkeep, with Explosive Blast Chain Reaction being spammed, Teleport Calamity — used to stun and maneuver, and Blizzard — simply used to keep up the proc. You will have two passive buffs in the background: Magic Weapon and Ice Armor, which should be activated at the start of a run and refreshed before they expire.

While the build uses numerous flashy spells of the four major elements, make no mistake — their presence in the build is to simply assist and facilitate Manald Heal, whose damage procs deliver the lion's share of your damage. Since the ring relies on the Paralysis passive in turn, it will require a consistent Lightning spell to trigger the interaction in the first place. Without going indepth on Diablo 3 mechanics, this means spells with high speed coefficients, delivering multiple hits in a fixed timeframe. A suggested starting point is Arcane Torrent with the projectile-splitting Static Discharge, suitable for GR progression due to its synergy with multiple defensive items (see this build's gear page for more information).

Explosive Blast is part of many Tal Rasha builds, and that is no coincidence; it is a fire-and-forget spell that unleashes a 12-yard radial wave of energy (conveniently centered on the character), and will not disrupt the channeling spells the build focuses on. There is a notable 1.5-second wind up animation however, and you will have to make a conscious effort to catch at least one enemy in the detonation radius — while it is a non-factor as a damage dealer, Explosive Blast is a quarter of your Tal Rasha bonuses (covering for Fire), as well as your source of Orb of Infinite Depth stacks. To make it easier for you to upkeep those bonuses, we will opt for the triple explosions of the rune Chain Reaction.

You have two very competitive skill options to trigger Cold portion of the Tal Rasha bonuses. The first one is Blizzard — a spell with a very flexible range, with multiple hits over its duration offering ample stacks for your Pain Enhancer — all for the dirt cheap 10 Arcane Power of the Snowbound rune. The second one is Frost Nova Frozen Mist, whose strengths include not interrupting channeling and casting automatically from character location, no aiming required — making it superior for convenience. Both choices are completely valid and up to your own preference.

Mobility is an inseparable part of any solo-capable Diablo build, and this one is no exception by including Teleport. Through the effect of Illusionist, this normally cooldown-based skill turns into a reasonably spammable tool. The utility becomes even greater with the Calamity, whose minor Arcane damage component will trigger the respective quarter of the Tal Rasha bonuses, and whose 1-second stun will aid Ancient Parthan Defenders in GRs.

For Greater Rift progression, you will take advantage of Ice Armor with the massive bulwark of Crystallize. Enemies will invariably close in on you as you remain static to channel your Lightning spell, so you can turn this drawback in your favor by engaging in melee brawl immediately — forcing them to refresh your Crystallize stacks constantly. Adding the Halo of Arlyse — Ancient Parthan Defenders combo on top of Ice Armor will form the basis of your survivability in high GRs.

Your sixth skill slot can also be adjusted according to personal preference. The general recommendation for the slot is Magic Weapon, as it offers great flexibility and makes your progress less reliant on Rift layouts. By taking Magic Weapon Conduit, you will make the maintenance of the cubed Aquila Cuirass bonus a little easier. Notable alternatives for the slot are Frost Nova Bone Chill or Slow Time Stretch Time — both of which will provide more damage overall, but will require you to actively fish for good monster density.

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

Paralysis is a necessary inclusion in a build that relies on Manald Heal procs to deal damage; no other stun will trigger the ring. The Paralysis stun is applied on cast to every enemy affected by the spell at the time of the proc; the passive is unaffected by proc coefficients of the used skill.

Audacity is a natural inclusion in a channeling spellcaster build, bringing an impressive 30% multiplicative damage increase against enemies that naturally rush within 15 yards of you.

Reworked into a comparable function to other cheat deaths, Unstable Anomaly gives you one shot at dodging a lethal situation. Operating on a standard 60-second cooldown and adding a 3-second stun to nearby enemies — plus a solid, 400% max life shield for 5 seconds — it will become a constant companion to your Greater Rift pushes.

Illusionist is one of the most powerful Wizard survival tools in Greater Rifts, 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 higher difficulties. The additional 30% movement speed after Teleporting is just icing on the cake.