After trying many skills and builds on the PTR, I'm going to give the over-view on wizard skills. Please note, certain legendary affect skills and may change usability.
Signature Skills: Magic Missile: Charged Blast: Decent, run-of-the-mill attack. Decent damage and range, but nothing special.
Glacial Spike: Very strong skill; deals AoE damage and freezes every monster hit. Has very good defensive applications, Probably one of the staples
Split / Seeker: Both runes basically useless. Seeker has some PvP applications, should it ever be implemented.
Conflagrate: Deals Fire damage and stacks a fire DoT at range, (unlike Charged Bolts). Weak damage, but triggers Conflagration.
Shock Pulse:
Sadly, Shock pulse, and it's runes, are pretty much useless. "Fire Bolts" has some use as up-front fire damage you don't have to stack. "Explosive Bolts" appears to be NYI, so I'll reserve judgement on that. Living Lightning used to have a large proc coefficient, but that's since been reverted. For Lightning, I think Electrocute runes are just better.
Spectral Blades:
Fire Blade, Thrown Blade, Siphoning Blade and esp. Barrier Blades all look good. Barrier Blade is some strong defense. Siphoning Blades can restore a TON of AP. Ice Blade doesn't seem to compare to Glacial spike in any real way without a Legendary affix or three.
Electrocute Chain Lightning: Chain Lightning may have some use if you can gather large packs of mobs, but 10+ mobs you'd probably be using your Ap spender anyway. Decent to start out with, gets replaced fairly quickly. May have a legendary geared for this rune.
Forked Lightning I love Forked Lightning. It's like an improved version of Shock Pulse. It doesn't do as much upfront damage, but it's got tons better range, easier to aim, and splashes to more enemies, which trigger Paralysis more.
Lightning Blast: It's the Lightning equivalent of Glacial Spike/Conflagrate; it just peirces all enemies and does higher damage then it's fire/ice counterparts, but with a much lower AE radius.
Surge of Power: Changes Electrocute to Arcane damage and restores up to 9AP. Although it will likely restore far less AP then Siphoning, it has better range.
Arc Lightning: Pretty much trumps Living Lightning in every way for close up damage, except you have to be slightly closer. May have a lower proc coefficient then LL.
Secondary
Arcane Orb:
Obliteration/Arcane Orbit/Spark: Nothing to see here. Useful while leveling. Other runes just better.
Scorch: This rune made me pause. The damage is pretty good, has range and decent attack speed. It's not bad, but I think Meteor is better, Scorch trumps Heat Wave in pretty much every way though.
Frozen Orb: I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell anyone how nostalgic this spell is, and truth be told, it looks fantastic. The damage isn't bad, and it's perhaps a little easier to aim then Meteor, though it hits for far less damage.
Arcane Torrent
Outside a ridiculously broken coefficient, Arcane torrent, along with Energy twister, are the big losers of RoS. It's just terrible, and worse when the proc coefficient is fixed.
Ray of Frost
Cold Blooded: I really do like this rune. It allows you to replace your signature attack with Ray of Frost and use both Blizzard and something else as Arcane spenders. It's really well designed and has possibilities, but we'll see how Builds shape up.
Numb: I think it's inferior in every way to Glacial Spike. It costs AP, doesn't guarantee a freeze, doesn't stack Dynamo. The only thing numb offers over Spike is slightly better damage, but likely not enough you'd ever consider it.
Black Ice/Sleet Storm: Very good runes that are very possible to build around, Black Ice in particular.
Snow Blast: If Snow Blast was on a signature attack, it might have some use. Unfortunately, it's not and it doesn't. Next.
Disintegrate
If you're going to be an Arcane Wizard, Disintegrate is what you're going to be likely building around. Good damage, range, plus piercing makes this the hands down best secondary attack. Convergence and Chaos Nexus are the pick of the litter, with Intensify being possibly paired with Cannoneer, should you use it.
Wave of Force: I'm not really a huge fan of Wave of Force in RoS. Some of the runes range from near useless to somewhat useful, none particularly good. I particularly find Impactful wave the best of the bunch; The knockback synergizes very well with Temportal Flux. Heat Wave and Static Discharge are marginally useful, but Meteor, both Lightning and Fire variants, are likely the best AP spenders. There is no cold rune. Debilitating Force is likely the worst rune in RoS.
Energy Twister: Compared to Meteor, or Orb, or Disintegrate this skill, along with Arcane Torrent, is almost useless in every respect. Difficult to aim, expensive, doesn't stack, this skill just doesn't make the cut.
Blizzard: A very decent skill, it is everything Energy Twister is not. Easy to aim, better damage, with a large radius or cheaper AP cost or the chance to freeze mobs in place, this skill is very complementary to Ray of Frost in particular.
Hydra: This skill is tough. The Good News: It's inexpensive, comes in any elemental damage-type, is very versatile and complements a single elemental wizard very well. The bad news: There are better AP spenders (Disintegrate, Meteor, Blizzard) and a couple slots need to be dedicated to defensive utility. Hydra is usually the first skill to be a "Win-more" skill and thus the first one to be cut for more survivability. There are a few legendarily that might make this skill more appetizing.
Meteor:
Probably the best AP spender in the game. It is very high damage, is spammable, comes in every element and often with a neat trick like Rooting or freezing built in. Lightning Bind, Comet, and Molten Impact are the go-to elemental AP spenders. The only element that probably doesn't care about Meteor is Arcane. They are probably going to go with Disintegrate, just due to Intensify and Cannoneer playing so well together.
Conjuration:
Ice Armor: Ice Armor may lack the sheer survivability of Energy Armor, but with the addition of Ice Reflect, it comes close even while staying in-theme. On the other hand, there is Frozen Storm, which will give Shocking Aspect a run for it's money as go-to offensive armor. There is a certain legendary that allows Cold damage to freeze enemies, and it's synergy with Frozen Storm is unrivaled.
Magic Weapon: This skill is probably one of the most widely-appealing skills in RoS. Whether you are Fire, Lightning, or Arcane, or just looking for bit of survivability and extra damage with Deflection, this skill has you covered. Conduit is probably the weakest rune of the bunch, and Conduit isn't THAT weak at all. If only more skills were as good as Magic Weapon. It may find a home in Disintegrate builds.
Familiar: There was a time when only one Familiar rune was decent, and that was Sparkflint. Now, there is a rune specially geared for Ice wizards (Icicle) that freezes enemies for pure defensive advantage with a bit of damage thrown in, and a VERY strong rune for Arcane called Cannoneer, which causes your helper to machine gun enemies for 240% arcane damage. As noted before, this rune synergizes particularly well with Intensify, meaning enemies will take 255%+ arcane damage a hit in an 6 yard AE radius that costs no arcane power. This is more damage then Hydra and is comparable with Wave of Force.
Storm Armor:Storm armor is relatively unchanged from Vanilla, and is still a great choice for Shocking Aspect, the armor of choice for CM/WW. It's a particularly high damage armor, that when coupled with Paralysis, adds great control to Lightning builds. Power of the Storm is another popular rune that makes Disintegrate much more spammable.
Energy Armor: The ever-popular Energy armor is unchanged in RoS, and honestly it didn't really need to be. Another one of the Wizards' best designed skills, Energy armor ranges helping AP-hungry builds keep their AP up, to uber-defensive runes like Force Armor/Prismatic Armor to make even the most deadly of blows manageable.
Defensives
Frost Nova: Frost nova was nerfed slightly in RoS. It now freezes for 2 seconds instead of 3, and the cooldown was increased by 2 seconds. the Rune Cold Snap reduces the CD to 7.5 seconds and extends the freeze duration back to 3 seconds. Honestly, I predict wizards won't have so much trouble with melee mobs (paralysis, Temp Flux, Chill.) as so much elemental damage like Desecrate, Poisoned Enchanted, Plagued, etc. These things are harder and harder to avoid with affixs like jailer, frozen and Waller are increasingly common. Frost Nova isn't really going to help with those, but Deep Freeze and Bone chill are still pretty compelling runes with 10% Crit chance or 33% more damage for 2 seconds.
Crystal Shell: Nerfed, Nerfed, Nerfed. By 50%. It now lasts 3 seconds instead of 6 seconds baseline. You can still grab the 6 seconds duration, but at the cost of a 50% weaker absorb. Prism (-AP for duration) also nerfed by 50%. It was a completely unjustified nerf. I can understand they wanted to make other runes then Crystal Shell and Diamond Shards more compelling, but they absolutely killed the spell with its extremely limited duration. It's almost always better to go Teleport now. Too bad. It doesn't even interact with "Illusionist" but ST, Teleport and Slow Time and Mirror images do, and that feels like the final nail in the coffin.
Teleport: Teleportis kinda buggy on the PTR at the moment. That said, it's probably the go-to defensive spell with Crystal Shell nerfed to extremely duration/absorption}. It gets you out of Jailer and Frozen and Waller, which in turn gets you out of desecrate, plagued, arcane and the like. This is not to mention the new and improved "Illusionist" passive - (that, shockingly, doesnt interact with Diamond Skin at all) that makes you move 30% faster and refreshes the CD if you take 15% damage in 1 second. My only real quibble with teleport is it really only feels comfortable (at least to me) as RMB; and that's generally where I put my AP spender.
Slow Time: Slow Time got a few interesting tweaks in RoS. One, it gets benefit from Illusionist (right now, the go-to Defensive passive) Point of no return allows you to Stun enemies as they reach you, giving you time to move or attack. Time Warp is still 10% damage for enemies caught in ST, and will be very popular in groups. Since the demise of Cm/WW, Time Stretch won't be nearly as popular.
Blur: Much improved over it's Vanilla state, Blur now reduces damage taken by 20% across the board, instead of just melee. Well worth it now for extra survivability.
Power Hungry: I want to like this skill. I really do. The idea is fine - grabbing health orbs makes AP spenders free to cast. Well and good. Except Health orbs in RoS are considerably rarer. It's great on trash, but on elites, it's much less useful.
Evocation: Unfortunately, I've yet to see a build use Evocation. It reduces cooldowns by 20%, which is fine, but with CM dead and buried, it's much less useful.
Glass Cannon: 15% more damage is nothing to sneeze at, and it requires no work. Unfortunately, it also reduces armor and resistances by 10%. It's a strong passive, esp for Builds with survivability to spare. It'll probably find a home in Lightning or Ice builds, which have a lot of control. It should really be 20% more damage because it demands a fairly big survivability hit.
Prodigy: Restores 4 AP on Signature attack. Not terrible, but there are better passives out there. Much better. If Prodigy restores 4 AP on ANY attack, including AP spenders, it would be worth strong consideration.
Astral Presence: Increases maximum AP by 20, and restores 2 AP/Second. It means an extra meteor or a few more ticks of disintegrate, but generally ApoC is far better. I think Astral Presence should add AP on Crit as a passive.
Illusionist: When you take 15% or more damage within 1 second, it resets the cooldown on Teleport, Mirror Images and Slow time. When you use Teleport, Slow Time or Mirror images, increase your movement speed by 30%. This could be a very strong, popular passive. Diamond Skin, which really should be on here, was nerfed significantly and is much less powerful in RoS. If Teleport becomes the go-to defensive, and I expect it might, you will see Illusionist popping up here and there.
Cold Blooded: Chilled or Frozen enemies take 10% more damage from all sources, which includes other players. Staple for cold, well worth it, esp. in group play.
Conflagration: Burning targets have an additional 6% chance to be critically hit by all sources. I think this is the weakest elemental passive in the wizard arsenal. I'd like to see it changed to something more defensive, considering fire has none of the control Arcane, Cold and Lightning have. Maybe burning enemies could flee in fear. Maybe that's fire's thing, but I can't help but notice how much weaker Fire is defensively -which may lead to problems down the road.
Paralysis: 15% chance to Stun an enemy when hit by lightning damage. This includes things like weapons with + lightning damage, Shocking Aspect, and Magic Weapon- Electrify. Simply an amazing passive for a Lightning Wizard.
Galvanizing Ward: If you take no damage for 5 seconds, gain a shield that absorbs 12,551 damage (at 60). Sounds good in theory, and maybe awesome when combined with Teleport/Illusionist. The problem, the BIG problem, is things like Desecrate and Plagued deal damage immediately. I suspect in RoS you'll be taking damage pretty often, and Ward triggering may be less often then it should. It should grant you the shield every 5 seconds, period, removing the if no damage taken trigger. Then I'd snag this puppy in a heartbeat for those Elite packs.
Temporal Flux: 80% slow for 2 seconds when you deal Arcane damage to a target. Pretty damn good, esp when you throw things like Disintegrate, Cannoneer, and Magic Weapon - Force Weapon into the mix. If you have some knockback, or use Impactful Wave in your build, you could kill a melee Elite pack without them every even getting to you. Pretty cool, huh?
Dominance: "Upon killing an enemy, you gain a shield that absorbs 4954 damage, stacking up to 10 times. At 10 stacks, the Shield lasts 10 seconds and absorbs 49540 damage. " Dominance is a solid survivability passive. It makes you basically immortal against trash. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much against Elite packs if there is no trash around to stack your shield. Blur may be more useful VS elites, which are the real killers, or Galvanizing Ward, should they remove the "no damage taken" trigger, like I mentioned before.
Arcane Dynamo: I find this passive accounts for about a 20%ish damage increase. It's better if you can save the +75% damage for a Big hit, like Meteor- Molten Impact to really decimate Elite packs. Builds that dont use signature spells or spam AP spenders get nothing out of this passive.
Unstable Anomoly: A mandatory passive in Hardcore, (It'll never leave your bar.) Its less good in Softcore. I suspect you'll see a bigger difference if you used the newly buffed Blur, unless you use both!
Electrocute - Surge actually restores AP a lot faster than anything else (Siphoning included) as long as there are at least 2 enemies. With 4-5 enemies, it refills your bulb almost instantly.
Frost Nova: Frost nova was nerfed slightly in RoS. It now freezes for 2 seconds instead of 3, and the cooldown was increased by 2 seconds. the Rune Cold Snap reduces the CD to 7.5 seconds and extends the freeze duration back to 3 seconds. Honestly, I predict wizards won't have so much trouble with melee mobs (paralysis, Temp Flux, Chill.) as so much elemental damage like Desecrate, Poisoned Enchanted, Plagued, etc. These things are harder and harder to avoid with affixs like jailer, frozen and Waller are increasingly common. Frost Nova isn't really going to help with those, but Deep Freeze and Bone chill are still pretty compelling runes with 10% Crit chance or 33% more damage for 2 seconds.
Crystal Shell: Nerfed, Nerfed, Nerfed. By 50%. It now lasts 3 seconds instead of 6 seconds baseline. You can still grab the 6 seconds duration, but at the cost of a 50% weaker absorb. Prism (-AP for duration) also nerfed by 50%. It was a completely unjustified nerf. I can understand they wanted to make other runes then Crystal Shell and Diamond Shards more compelling, but they absolutely killed the spell with its extremely limited duration. It's almost always better to go Teleport now. Too bad. It doesn't even interact with "Illusionist" but ST, Teleport and Slow Time and Mirror images do, and that feels like the final nail in the coffin.
Teleport: Teleportis kinda buggy on the PTR at the moment. That said, it's probably the go-to defensive spell with Crystal Shell nerfed to extremely duration/absorption}. It gets you out of Jailer and Frozen and Waller, which in turn gets you out of desecrate, plagued, arcane and the like. This is not to mention the new and improved "Illusionist" passive - (that, shockingly, doesnt interact with Diamond Skin at all) that makes you move 30% faster and refreshes the CD if you take 15% damage in 1 second. My only real quibble with teleport is it really only feels comfortable (at least to me) as RMB; and that's generally where I put my AP spender.
Slow Time: Slow Time got a few interesting tweaks in RoS. One, it gets benefit from Illusionist (right now, the go-to Defensive passive) Point of no return allows you to Stun enemies as they reach you, giving you time to move or attack. Time Warp is still 10% damage for enemies caught in ST, and will be very popular in groups. Since the demise of Cm/WW, Time Stretch won't be nearly as popular.
Slow Time is a nice damage buff, especially in groups it might become very popular like you said. That includes Time Stretch, because the max IAS on gear is 6%, so a 10% buff will be worth about 2 primary stats; if you're on a build that's APS-dependent, you'll love a wizard with Time Stretch bubble in your group.
The other three skills don't look too compelling, but you forget that 1) Torment is damn hard and you need defensive abilities in many situations and 2) these spells will become more interesting when stacking cooldown reduction (unfortunately, the paragon CDR is bugged right now). For example, 60% CDR and Frost Nova - Cold Snap allows for a theoretical 100% FN uptime.
I wouldn't really consider the duration nerf.. but the absorb amount compared to total HP pool and damage taken, it just does not do enough to deserve a slot atm. Unless you have crazy defences.
Venaltier - about Diamond Skin... Why is the reduced duration a nerf? When you use Diamond Skin it's like a Panic Button. On live it usually goes down in 1 second.
The only build that is actually hurt by the reduced duration is the infinite meteor build that relies on Prism to spam meteors.
It's a clear nerf, for a couple different reasons. One, the illusionist passive doesn't interact with it at all, but it does the other three. Two, doesn't absorb enough, three; Sometimes it fades before the expected burst comes. Four; It's much less useful against Reflect and esp. ThunderStorm now. It's just honestly not worth using until you get maybe ridiculous cooldown reduction and you can always keep it up. We'll see.
Signature Skills:
Magic Missile:
Charged Blast: Decent, run-of-the-mill attack. Decent damage and range, but nothing special.
Glacial Spike: Very strong skill; deals AoE damage and freezes every monster hit. Has very good defensive applications, Probably one of the staples
Split / Seeker: Both runes basically useless. Seeker has some PvP applications, should it ever be implemented.
Conflagrate: Deals Fire damage and stacks a fire DoT at range, (unlike Charged Bolts). Weak damage, but triggers Conflagration.
Shock Pulse:
Sadly, Shock pulse, and it's runes, are pretty much useless. "Fire Bolts" has some use as up-front fire damage you don't have to stack. "Explosive Bolts" appears to be NYI, so I'll reserve judgement on that. Living Lightning used to have a large proc coefficient, but that's since been reverted. For Lightning, I think Electrocute runes are just better.
Spectral Blades:
Fire Blade, Thrown Blade, Siphoning Blade and esp. Barrier Blades all look good. Barrier Blade is some strong defense. Siphoning Blades can restore a TON of AP. Ice Blade doesn't seem to compare to Glacial spike in any real way without a Legendary affix or three.
Electrocute
Chain Lightning: Chain Lightning may have some use if you can gather large packs of mobs, but 10+ mobs you'd probably be using your Ap spender anyway. Decent to start out with, gets replaced fairly quickly. May have a legendary geared for this rune.
Forked Lightning I love Forked Lightning. It's like an improved version of Shock Pulse. It doesn't do as much upfront damage, but it's got tons better range, easier to aim, and splashes to more enemies, which trigger Paralysis more.
Lightning Blast: It's the Lightning equivalent of Glacial Spike/Conflagrate; it just peirces all enemies and does higher damage then it's fire/ice counterparts, but with a much lower AE radius.
Surge of Power: Changes Electrocute to Arcane damage and restores up to 9AP. Although it will likely restore far less AP then Siphoning, it has better range.
Arc Lightning: Pretty much trumps Living Lightning in every way for close up damage, except you have to be slightly closer. May have a lower proc coefficient then LL.
Secondary
Arcane Orb:
Obliteration/Arcane Orbit/Spark: Nothing to see here. Useful while leveling. Other runes just better.
Scorch: This rune made me pause. The damage is pretty good, has range and decent attack speed. It's not bad, but I think Meteor is better, Scorch trumps Heat Wave in pretty much every way though.
Frozen Orb: I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell anyone how nostalgic this spell is, and truth be told, it looks fantastic. The damage isn't bad, and it's perhaps a little easier to aim then Meteor, though it hits for far less damage.
Arcane Torrent
Outside a ridiculously broken coefficient, Arcane torrent, along with Energy twister, are the big losers of RoS. It's just terrible, and worse when the proc coefficient is fixed.
Ray of Frost
Cold Blooded: I really do like this rune. It allows you to replace your signature attack with Ray of Frost and use both Blizzard and something else as Arcane spenders. It's really well designed and has possibilities, but we'll see how Builds shape up.
Numb: I think it's inferior in every way to Glacial Spike. It costs AP, doesn't guarantee a freeze, doesn't stack Dynamo. The only thing numb offers over Spike is slightly better damage, but likely not enough you'd ever consider it.
Black Ice/Sleet Storm: Very good runes that are very possible to build around, Black Ice in particular.
Snow Blast: If Snow Blast was on a signature attack, it might have some use. Unfortunately, it's not and it doesn't. Next.
Disintegrate
If you're going to be an Arcane Wizard, Disintegrate is what you're going to be likely building around. Good damage, range, plus piercing makes this the hands down best secondary attack. Convergence and Chaos Nexus are the pick of the litter, with Intensify being possibly paired with Cannoneer, should you use it.
Wave of Force: I'm not really a huge fan of Wave of Force in RoS. Some of the runes range from near useless to somewhat useful, none particularly good. I particularly find Impactful wave the best of the bunch; The knockback synergizes very well with Temportal Flux. Heat Wave and Static Discharge are marginally useful, but Meteor, both Lightning and Fire variants, are likely the best AP spenders. There is no cold rune. Debilitating Force is likely the worst rune in RoS.
Energy Twister: Compared to Meteor, or Orb, or Disintegrate this skill, along with Arcane Torrent, is almost useless in every respect. Difficult to aim, expensive, doesn't stack, this skill just doesn't make the cut.
Blizzard: A very decent skill, it is everything Energy Twister is not. Easy to aim, better damage, with a large radius or cheaper AP cost or the chance to freeze mobs in place, this skill is very complementary to Ray of Frost in particular.
Hydra: This skill is tough. The Good News: It's inexpensive, comes in any elemental damage-type, is very versatile and complements a single elemental wizard very well. The bad news: There are better AP spenders (Disintegrate, Meteor, Blizzard) and a couple slots need to be dedicated to defensive utility. Hydra is usually the first skill to be a "Win-more" skill and thus the first one to be cut for more survivability. There are a few legendarily that might make this skill more appetizing.
Meteor:
Probably the best AP spender in the game. It is very high damage, is spammable, comes in every element and often with a neat trick like Rooting or freezing built in. Lightning Bind, Comet, and Molten Impact are the go-to elemental AP spenders. The only element that probably doesn't care about Meteor is Arcane. They are probably going to go with Disintegrate, just due to Intensify and Cannoneer playing so well together.
Conjuration:
Ice Armor: Ice Armor may lack the sheer survivability of Energy Armor, but with the addition of Ice Reflect, it comes close even while staying in-theme. On the other hand, there is Frozen Storm, which will give Shocking Aspect a run for it's money as go-to offensive armor. There is a certain legendary that allows Cold damage to freeze enemies, and it's synergy with Frozen Storm is unrivaled.
Magic Weapon: This skill is probably one of the most widely-appealing skills in RoS. Whether you are Fire, Lightning, or Arcane, or just looking for bit of survivability and extra damage with Deflection, this skill has you covered. Conduit is probably the weakest rune of the bunch, and Conduit isn't THAT weak at all. If only more skills were as good as Magic Weapon. It may find a home in Disintegrate builds.
Familiar: There was a time when only one Familiar rune was decent, and that was Sparkflint. Now, there is a rune specially geared for Ice wizards (Icicle) that freezes enemies for pure defensive advantage with a bit of damage thrown in, and a VERY strong rune for Arcane called Cannoneer, which causes your helper to machine gun enemies for 240% arcane damage. As noted before, this rune synergizes particularly well with Intensify, meaning enemies will take 255%+ arcane damage a hit in an 6 yard AE radius that costs no arcane power. This is more damage then Hydra and is comparable with Wave of Force.
Storm Armor:Storm armor is relatively unchanged from Vanilla, and is still a great choice for Shocking Aspect, the armor of choice for CM/WW. It's a particularly high damage armor, that when coupled with Paralysis, adds great control to Lightning builds. Power of the Storm is another popular rune that makes Disintegrate much more spammable.
Energy Armor: The ever-popular Energy armor is unchanged in RoS, and honestly it didn't really need to be. Another one of the Wizards' best designed skills, Energy armor ranges helping AP-hungry builds keep their AP up, to uber-defensive runes like Force Armor/Prismatic Armor to make even the most deadly of blows manageable.
Defensives
Frost Nova: Frost nova was nerfed slightly in RoS. It now freezes for 2 seconds instead of 3, and the cooldown was increased by 2 seconds. the Rune Cold Snap reduces the CD to 7.5 seconds and extends the freeze duration back to 3 seconds. Honestly, I predict wizards won't have so much trouble with melee mobs (paralysis, Temp Flux, Chill.) as so much elemental damage like Desecrate, Poisoned Enchanted, Plagued, etc. These things are harder and harder to avoid with affixs like jailer, frozen and Waller are increasingly common. Frost Nova isn't really going to help with those, but Deep Freeze and Bone chill are still pretty compelling runes with 10% Crit chance or 33% more damage for 2 seconds.
Crystal Shell: Nerfed, Nerfed, Nerfed. By 50%. It now lasts 3 seconds instead of 6 seconds baseline. You can still grab the 6 seconds duration, but at the cost of a 50% weaker absorb. Prism (-AP for duration) also nerfed by 50%. It was a completely unjustified nerf. I can understand they wanted to make other runes then Crystal Shell and Diamond Shards more compelling, but they absolutely killed the spell with its extremely limited duration. It's almost always better to go Teleport now. Too bad. It doesn't even interact with "Illusionist" but ST, Teleport and Slow Time and Mirror images do, and that feels like the final nail in the coffin.
Teleport: Teleport is kinda buggy on the PTR at the moment. That said, it's probably the go-to defensive spell with Crystal Shell nerfed to extremely duration/absorption}. It gets you out of Jailer and Frozen and Waller, which in turn gets you out of desecrate, plagued, arcane and the like. This is not to mention the new and improved "Illusionist" passive - (that, shockingly, doesnt interact with Diamond Skin at all) that makes you move 30% faster and refreshes the CD if you take 15% damage in 1 second. My only real quibble with teleport is it really only feels comfortable (at least to me) as RMB; and that's generally where I put my AP spender.
Slow Time: Slow Time got a few interesting tweaks in RoS. One, it gets benefit from Illusionist (right now, the go-to Defensive passive) Point of no return allows you to Stun enemies as they reach you, giving you time to move or attack. Time Warp is still 10% damage for enemies caught in ST, and will be very popular in groups. Since the demise of Cm/WW, Time Stretch won't be nearly as popular.
Blur: Much improved over it's Vanilla state, Blur now reduces damage taken by 20% across the board, instead of just melee. Well worth it now for extra survivability.
Power Hungry: I want to like this skill. I really do. The idea is fine - grabbing health orbs makes AP spenders free to cast. Well and good. Except Health orbs in RoS are considerably rarer. It's great on trash, but on elites, it's much less useful.
Evocation: Unfortunately, I've yet to see a build use Evocation. It reduces cooldowns by 20%, which is fine, but with CM dead and buried, it's much less useful.
Glass Cannon: 15% more damage is nothing to sneeze at, and it requires no work. Unfortunately, it also reduces armor and resistances by 10%. It's a strong passive, esp for Builds with survivability to spare. It'll probably find a home in Lightning or Ice builds, which have a lot of control. It should really be 20% more damage because it demands a fairly big survivability hit.
Prodigy: Restores 4 AP on Signature attack. Not terrible, but there are better passives out there. Much better. If Prodigy restores 4 AP on ANY attack, including AP spenders, it would be worth strong consideration.
Astral Presence: Increases maximum AP by 20, and restores 2 AP/Second. It means an extra meteor or a few more ticks of disintegrate, but generally ApoC is far better. I think Astral Presence should add AP on Crit as a passive.
Illusionist: When you take 15% or more damage within 1 second, it resets the cooldown on Teleport, Mirror Images and Slow time. When you use Teleport, Slow Time or Mirror images, increase your movement speed by 30%. This could be a very strong, popular passive. Diamond Skin, which really should be on here, was nerfed significantly and is much less powerful in RoS. If Teleport becomes the go-to defensive, and I expect it might, you will see Illusionist popping up here and there.
Cold Blooded: Chilled or Frozen enemies take 10% more damage from all sources, which includes other players. Staple for cold, well worth it, esp. in group play.
Conflagration: Burning targets have an additional 6% chance to be critically hit by all sources. I think this is the weakest elemental passive in the wizard arsenal. I'd like to see it changed to something more defensive, considering fire has none of the control Arcane, Cold and Lightning have. Maybe burning enemies could flee in fear. Maybe that's fire's thing, but I can't help but notice how much weaker Fire is defensively -which may lead to problems down the road.
Paralysis: 15% chance to Stun an enemy when hit by lightning damage. This includes things like weapons with + lightning damage, Shocking Aspect, and Magic Weapon- Electrify. Simply an amazing passive for a Lightning Wizard.
Galvanizing Ward: If you take no damage for 5 seconds, gain a shield that absorbs 12,551 damage (at 60). Sounds good in theory, and maybe awesome when combined with Teleport/Illusionist. The problem, the BIG problem, is things like Desecrate and Plagued deal damage immediately. I suspect in RoS you'll be taking damage pretty often, and Ward triggering may be less often then it should. It should grant you the shield every 5 seconds, period, removing the if no damage taken trigger. Then I'd snag this puppy in a heartbeat for those Elite packs.
Temporal Flux: 80% slow for 2 seconds when you deal Arcane damage to a target. Pretty damn good, esp when you throw things like Disintegrate, Cannoneer, and Magic Weapon - Force Weapon into the mix. If you have some knockback, or use Impactful Wave in your build, you could kill a melee Elite pack without them every even getting to you. Pretty cool, huh?
Dominance: "Upon killing an enemy, you gain a shield that absorbs 4954 damage, stacking up to 10 times. At 10 stacks, the Shield lasts 10 seconds and absorbs 49540 damage. " Dominance is a solid survivability passive. It makes you basically immortal against trash. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much against Elite packs if there is no trash around to stack your shield. Blur may be more useful VS elites, which are the real killers, or Galvanizing Ward, should they remove the "no damage taken" trigger, like I mentioned before.
Arcane Dynamo: I find this passive accounts for about a 20%ish damage increase. It's better if you can save the +75% damage for a Big hit, like Meteor- Molten Impact to really decimate Elite packs. Builds that dont use signature spells or spam AP spenders get nothing out of this passive.
Unstable Anomoly: A mandatory passive in Hardcore, (It'll never leave your bar.) Its less good in Softcore. I suspect you'll see a bigger difference if you used the newly buffed Blur, unless you use both!
Electrocute - Surge actually restores AP a lot faster than anything else (Siphoning included) as long as there are at least 2 enemies. With 4-5 enemies, it refills your bulb almost instantly.
Thanks for the write-up. Maybe I'll even level a new Wiz on PTR during the holidays. That is, if I still don't get into beta
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Frost Nova: Frost nova was nerfed slightly in RoS. It now freezes for 2 seconds instead of 3, and the cooldown was increased by 2 seconds. the Rune Cold Snap reduces the CD to 7.5 seconds and extends the freeze duration back to 3 seconds. Honestly, I predict wizards won't have so much trouble with melee mobs (paralysis, Temp Flux, Chill.) as so much elemental damage like Desecrate, Poisoned Enchanted, Plagued, etc. These things are harder and harder to avoid with affixs like jailer, frozen and Waller are increasingly common. Frost Nova isn't really going to help with those, but Deep Freeze and Bone chill are still pretty compelling runes with 10% Crit chance or 33% more damage for 2 seconds.
Crystal Shell: Nerfed, Nerfed, Nerfed. By 50%. It now lasts 3 seconds instead of 6 seconds baseline. You can still grab the 6 seconds duration, but at the cost of a 50% weaker absorb. Prism (-AP for duration) also nerfed by 50%. It was a completely unjustified nerf. I can understand they wanted to make other runes then Crystal Shell and Diamond Shards more compelling, but they absolutely killed the spell with its extremely limited duration. It's almost always better to go Teleport now. Too bad. It doesn't even interact with "Illusionist" but ST, Teleport and Slow Time and Mirror images do, and that feels like the final nail in the coffin.
Teleport: Teleport is kinda buggy on the PTR at the moment. That said, it's probably the go-to defensive spell with Crystal Shell nerfed to extremely duration/absorption}. It gets you out of Jailer and Frozen and Waller, which in turn gets you out of desecrate, plagued, arcane and the like. This is not to mention the new and improved "Illusionist" passive - (that, shockingly, doesnt interact with Diamond Skin at all) that makes you move 30% faster and refreshes the CD if you take 15% damage in 1 second. My only real quibble with teleport is it really only feels comfortable (at least to me) as RMB; and that's generally where I put my AP spender.
Slow Time: Slow Time got a few interesting tweaks in RoS. One, it gets benefit from Illusionist (right now, the go-to Defensive passive) Point of no return allows you to Stun enemies as they reach you, giving you time to move or attack. Time Warp is still 10% damage for enemies caught in ST, and will be very popular in groups. Since the demise of Cm/WW, Time Stretch won't be nearly as popular.
The other three skills don't look too compelling, but you forget that 1) Torment is damn hard and you need defensive abilities in many situations and 2) these spells will become more interesting when stacking cooldown reduction (unfortunately, the paragon CDR is bugged right now). For example, 60% CDR and Frost Nova - Cold Snap allows for a theoretical 100% FN uptime.
I wouldn't really consider the duration nerf.. but the absorb amount compared to total HP pool and damage taken, it just does not do enough to deserve a slot atm. Unless you have crazy defences.