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175% weapon damage on Arcane Orb, same for Torrent.
Meteor with this low damage can't even compare to firing controlled 175% weapon damage for 20 AP.

That being said if it had a rune to it that would, say, follow a target or stayed on the cast-on target somehow it would be really beneficial for single target DPS. I know it has a "stay put" option but that seems to have less of a use unless you're playing melee wizard.

I can still see good use for this spell when combined with more controlled spells.
It has it's uses and if used properly it wields a very nice damage output per AP (for single target mostly, but maybe against a bunch of weak mobs too).
It's really hard for me to judge, they should really update the calculator with each patch or something.

Well clearly if it's that weak in the current build it's somewhat of a gimp.
What I'm curious about is just how much does Arcane Orb currently do (it's really the basic AoE attack in my mind right now), comparing the cost and damage of the unruned skills should give more info for us to judge by.

Antirepublican, you must be a social phenomena

Amusing video anyway, now ya'll just add the story behind: he's doing this performance to distract the crowed while he's channeling his familiar to go get a scroll from the Sorcerer of the tower nearby.

Pew Pew, guns don't kill people - arcane missiles kill them.

As for the Arcane Missle split vs the Pulse, I get your idea. Still if you're playing a Fire build Pulse has a very good use runed into Fire.
Also if you're splitting your missile anyway I would totally go for Electrocute since it deals more damage to the same amount of targets UNRUNED - and is even more controllable if I get the spell right (did NOT play the beta).

As for Energy Twister, well, I've got one thing to say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJ296ZaDPA&feature=player_embedded

It practically means launching something with the radius of Arcane Orb randomly. You can't even judge if it'll hit close or far the way I understand it (should be screen wide unless it has some 20 yard limit from the caster).
Too out of control unless you want to button mash after gathering 4 packs or so.

Still 1/20 is unreliable on any scale.
Would rather have a constant slow effect on all enemies than RNG stun on one.
But that's me and I haven't even played the beta so...

While I see your reasoning you must keep a few things in mind:
Certain builds (arcane heavy / fire heavy, as examples) may rely on other signatures.
You can swap up the electric pulse one into fire to create a constant 15% extra damage on 3 targets ideally
You can also use arcane missle's variants to get a slow using arcane's passive slow (can go for 3 targets or 1 big target)

In addition you might wish to build around one target using arcane missiles (with minor aoe for adds such as arcane orb) as a boss specific build
And if you really wish you could also make a close-range wizard using spectral blade + wave of force + ray of frost runed into aoe

Anyway, just my own thoughts on the variants. I usually consider chain lightening the most viable build for a general hack&slash through content build, but I can see lots of bonuses in the others depending on game style and goals.

Well that about sums it up nicely, cheers

Would love to hear your input, one and all.

Currently with the Arcane Power system I'm leaning towards 2h weapons (slow one handed maybe) strictly to use AP more efficiently (assuming equal DPS).
Unless you're going for a signature-regenerate build of some sort it seems a faster weapon will mean depleting your resources faster for the same amount of damage (faster attack speed, lower damage). Clearly this will benefit you to counter it if you take AP regens like Prodigy (passive) and some rune for your signature spell, but otherwise it seems a slower weapon will lead to a better use of AP.

Thoughts? Additions?
Pew Pew that Wizard baby.

Thanks Antirepublican

Thanks all, information is well recieved.

Alright

What I'm trying to say is I might fail to see how dual wielding can build the same AoE and the game somewhat relies on AoE if I get it right.

On the sparkflint - it says "a fiery familiar" so I was assuming that, I use that variant in most builds I made and the arcane allows me to think on some more arcane focused builds for that matter.