I can understand if people are opposed to Indigo Meteor because of its major drawbacks:
1) Close range to cast (the two videos I have seen of Meteor show it to cast right in front of you)
2) Low chance (from the video I saw) that Indigo Meteor will ever hit the same target, unless it is one of the largest model enemies that are standing still
3) Delay of the spell, so to hit with it you are probably going to get hit, unless it is the first cast right after a Frost Nova.
This all leads me to still like other long range spells, regardless of channel or not. If a Barbarian or other melee class is holding aggro, thats great, but if you are aggro'd... I'd rather start firing from further away. Just my thought on the meteor-hate debate
it's simple.... we use the slow time + frost nova...
Or Alabaster Blizzard. Plenty of ways to ensure ideal Meteor damage. Play enough D2 sorc and dropping meteors and hitting moving targets isn't hard.
Arcane we already explained to him how Meteor is the highest dmg spell over and over and over and over to him. The kid is just an idiot and refuses to listen.
Yah this was more for my own interest (hence the massive thread I made comparing all the damage spells).
This is sad, are you going to keep trying to do this AW ? Stop it. Hahahahaha
Nice. I'm pretty sure you realize I'm right and have no counterargument.
Let's use some math.
Assumptions:
1 spell a second for non channeled spells, channeled spells deal damage every second. (Fair right?)
1000 base damage to be modified by spells.
7 second time window (1 second for you to cast Arcane Torrent, full 6 seconds of it's effect).
I'm not even going to take into account the fact Crimson Disintegrate requires a set amount of time to reach full damage, I'll start you off at full power. (Meaning in reality your numbers will be slightly lower)
In both cases there is a single enemy and all spells hit.
Now, we both know your spells of choice, Disintegrate and Arcane Torrent combo, both with a Crimson rune.
I'm actually just going to stop there. Technically with no other spells I'm out of AP after 2 casts with one regen from Magic Missile. Of course, if I had Indigo Energy Armor and Astral Presence I've already shown that you can drop 5 meteors in 8 seconds before you run out of AP.
Anyways, my total damage over just 3 seconds ends up at 82,860.
(Damage over the full 7 seconds can be found in my thread. It's over 120k. Completely destroys Disintegrate, not even a fair fight.)
I'm doing 182% more damage than you in less than half the time.
If anything, the numbers on your combination have DRASTICALLY dropped off compared to the higher cost AP spells.
Edit:
I'm going to further my point. Energy Twister sucks huh?
Spells: Crimson Arcane Torrent and Alabaster Energy Twister (Alabaster to keep it in place, on the target, to ensure fair damage numbers)
One assumption: From beta footage Energy Twister lasts roughly 7 - 10 seconds meaning that in our 7 window time frame the FIRST Twister will still be doing damage on the 7 second mark.
Energy Twister 7 seconds:
1 - Arcane Torrent: 2,000 damage.
2 - Energy Twister: 1,848 damage.
3 - Energy Twister: 1848 * 2 = 3,696 damage
4 - Energy Twister: 1848 * 3 = 5,544 damage
5 - (AP Regen): 1848 * 3 = 5,544 damage
6 - (AP Regen): 1848 * 3 = 5,544 damage
7 - Energy Twister: 1848 * 4 = 7,392 damage
Total Damage = 31,568 damage. That's 69% of the damage of your combo. Remember we even started you off at full charge of Disintegrate ignoring the build up time. We're not even using the top end damage rune in this case, and the fact that we run out of AP in this limited testing case should show that with better regen, and more AP it will pass Disintegrate in damage.
But yes, of course, Energy Twister is clearly complete garbage and should never be used.
They changed how they scaled so they would be more competitive, I was right and it just so happened Blizzard felt the same way. You were wrong (that is plural).
You are aware that percentage wise, in relation to each other, the spells do exactly the same amount of damage now as they did before right? The only change is that instead of having flat base numbers, the numbers are scaled off of your weapon damage.
I wasn't going to, but since you're standing by this list of yours I'll point out some of your errors in judgement. (The fact so many people disagree with you should be cluing you in already).
NOTE: I came up with every example build in under 1 minute. I'm not claiming they're amazing or that I'd use them per-say, but I do feel they would work just fine.
Temporal Flux: Slow time with Miasma lasts longer, better slow, and you don't have to hit them, just form it around them.
Right, first off you have a MASSIVE issue here. How do you even begin to compare an active skill to a passive? You don't equip them in the same slot, you get 6 actives vs 3 passives, if so many of our passives weren't mediocre they would be a lot more valuable.
Putting that aside your comparison of the two abilities is just flat out wrong. Slow Time is an AoE effect, fixed location spell, with a 30 second cooldown. Temporal Flux is applied to all spells that deal arcane damage, and is only used in builds that focus completely on arcane damage (kind of like your disintegrate obsession, so I don't understand why you wouldn't take this passive).
Now your claim: It lasts longer? How is that possible? With your own math you can channel disintegrate for 4 minutes. That's 4 minutes of slow from Flux. YOu don't even have to stop channeling your Crimson rune to get the slow effect. Seems more effective to me. Better slow? Yah sure. By 11%. Not to mention the fact that we don't know if Flux scales with gear. Even if it doesn't, 11% isn't that much and is a FREE effect, you don't have to use a spell cast to get it's effect like you would for Slow Time. You don't have to hit them? What? Do you even read what you write? How is hitting an enemy with Disintegrate + Flux harder than hitting with Slow Time? That doesn't even make sense!
In a build that only deals arcane damage (so you get maximum effect) flux allows you to take less defensive spells and focus on the damage output.
Glass Cannon: Marginal increase in damage, marginal decrease in AC and resistance. Familiar with Crimson rune is double the damage, who cares about just 20%. Throw in Arcane Torrent with Crimson Rune and you do 120% more damage with an arcane spell. Recycle Bin.
Again, you're comparing a Passive to an Active (Granted, Familiar is pretty damn passive, but still). I'll say it again, the spells take different slots, you cannot compare them.
Wow, look at that, Familiar, Crimson Arcane Torrent, AND Glass Cannon! All 3 in one build! With Crimson Slow Time!
Unstable Anomaly: If your planning to be below 20% life enough to make this a useful weapon then you need to change all your spells out! Trash it.
For a general wizard yes. For a melee wizard or a Hardcore wizard it could be useful. It's not a "weapon" as you call it, it's defense. When compared to other PASSIVES, yes, it's on the weaker side for sure, especially considering it's our top end one.
Power Hungry: Gain 30 power when healed by health. You gain 12 power just from standing still, in a pinch this could be useful but for most, trash it !
From what I've seen in Beta health globes are disgustingly common. Now I imagine that will peter off as you go along meaning that this could be the most OP passive for the first 3 Acts even if it's worthless in Inferno. Once you get to end game, yes, compared to other PASSIVES, it's weaker.
Prodigy: Marginal at best, you'll spend half the time firing off this saving up for meteor when you could use disintegrate crimson with storm armor and get more damage in less time.... Recycle bin. Good for a low level/melee wizard.
Again your Crimson Disintegrate with Storm Armor, it's like your only argument. Ever. -_-. Prodigy is pretty much required for builds that don't use a Golden Sig spell but still cast Sig spells often. Maybe Indigo Electrocute or Magic Missile. Long story short you need some form of regen other than base to fuel more expensive spells. These might not be the most competitive, top damage dealing builds, but they're going to be fun as hell: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZRVQOm!YXf!YaYYZa
Arcane Dynamo: Why do this spell when you can do Arcane Torrent with crimson rune and get 120% more damage with arcane spells for 6 seconds. Trash.
Yet again with comparing a passive to an active. Not going to go into this again. Just think of this though: Imagine you have 7 stacks of Dynamo. You hit the boss with Crimson Arcane Torrent to get the 120% damage boost, then you cast another sig spell to get your 8th charge. Now you cast Disintegrate and for it's entire channel it does 50% more damage. Lets see.... 40% from Familiar, 120% from Torrent, how about another 140% from Time Warp, and then the 50% from Dynamo. Thats +350% damage on your Disintegrate.
Side Note: I find it amusing you didn't say Crimson Familiar is better as well. A constant 40% boost is stronger than a 50% boost every 12 seconds. Obviously it doesn't work because of the passive vs active aspect, but you did it for Glass Cannon. I guess the math on that was more obvious.
Illusionist: A better illusion is Diamond skin and then kill the thing ! If your that worried about getting hit, probably by a melee thing, add Blur as passive with Diamond Skin and you don't have to worry. Even in Arena games Diamond skin seemed to work awesome and with Indigo rune you'll be up more often. Trash.
Passive vs Active AGAIN. (Starting to get why I was so disdainful of this post on first read and why so many others think it's a joke?)
Maybe you don't mind dying all the time, but in higher difficulties, especially before you're decked out in final gear, survivability is essential. Not to mention the fact you can use Mirror Image as a 140% damage boost.
Indigo Diamond Skin (and Obsidian) is certainly a powerful defensive tool. It's near impossible to compare it to Teleport however. If you're stuck surrounded by a massive group of enemies being pounded on in melee and shot at from range which would you prefer, Diamond Skin to take a bit of a beating or Teleport to just get the hell out of there?
Virtuoso: Recycle bin, could work ok for Energy armor but more often than not people will probably not use it.
The fact you so easily discard this skill when it has the potential to be amazing is alarming. This passive is one of two ways wizards have to regen health and this is a %, not even a flat number!! Assuming Galvanizing Ward's HP/sec scales with gear then this would as well. How fast do wands attack? There's so much information we don't have that makes it so you can't just throw this away.
Mirror Images (except Simulacrum and Extension of Will)- All other mirror images are probably useless or not as useful. The one that creates 6 images could be good, but, they only have 25% health which means they go bye bye fast if your taking a lot of damage. A neat trick at low levels but higher it'll probably just be laughed at as they disappear in a second. maybe good for Arena. Recycle bin. Why do mocking demise, when you could put the same rune in Wave of Force and definitely stun for 5.0 seconds and knock them back from you.
So, how often do Images cast spells? Cause see, I imagine this would be used in Arena, meaning they probably cast fairly often, maybe even at max speed, other wise it would be preeeeeety easy to figure out which one was real. Until we know that it's hard to say with this spell. Crimson runed it gives 140% damage increase for 15 seconds. Thats better than your Crimson Arcane Torrent you always bring up both in duration AND the fact that it boost all damage not just arcane AND that it provides a bit of defense at the same time! AND the two spells are both actives!!! OMG!!!! A logical comparison!?
I've used Crimson MI in a few other builds, not going to bother making another.
Meteor cost too high, good for one hit wonder if you can hit and if it does the max damage but Arcane torrent with Disintegrate will do more damage in the same amount of time, throw in the supposed cast time of 3 seconds for meteor and ease of missing and lower chance of critical compared to disintegrate. Trash.
Meteor is iconic. I get the feeling you haven't played Diablo 2. I can't tell you how many Meteor sorcs I made in that game. I know that it was easily one of the top damage builds (THE top damage for a period of time) and that I spent hours upon hours raining fiery death and it was awesome. Rumors are the 3 sec delay on it falling was removed for this game, even with it I can tell you that I don't miss with Meteor. With delay it takes skill to land, the reward for that skill is massive damage. Indigo runed Meteor is still the highest damage spell the wizard has assuming you can land all 14. How hard it is to do that is the real question.
You say "lower chance of critical than disintegrate" I don;t understand that, where are you even getting that from?
Arcane Orb: Recycle bin. Disintegrate is better, hits everything in front of you, less mana use etc. etc.
Energy Twister: Why use this when Ray of Frost or Disintegrate will cost less with more damage. Trash.
Explosive blast: Almost as bad as Energy twister, the only reason I would use it is if something is immune to arcane, that is it. Recycle Bin.
Not even going to do these three as this is already taking too long and I have a feeling I'm wasting my time with this whole thing regardless.
P.S. There are no immunities.
Ice Armor is great but slow with miasma is better. There is nothing Ice Armor can do that Slow time with Miasma can't do better, longer, or more reliably. Trash.
Alright. At least here we're comparing two actives. First off I don't like Ice Armor at all, but I'm still going to defend it. Lets start with your claim. "There is nothing Ice Armor can do that Slow time with Miasma can't do better, longer, or more reliably." Yah? What about increase your armor by 50%? I wasn't aware Miasma did that.
Now, the huge issue with this spell is that there's SO much unexplained. "...chilling them for 2 seconds." Okay.... what's chilling do? Is that an attack speed reduction? Movement speed? How much?
Does the Frost Nova from the Alabaster rune use the rune you have in Frost Nova if it's among your actives? (could be an awesome way to multi proc that if so). The Indigo Rune makes it so the chill effect is an AoE and doesn't require that you get hit which is awesome, but it doesn't give the numbers for the speed reductions. Then with Golden, if you have enough armor that effect could end up making you ridiculously resistant to physical damage! Math time!
Lets say you have 1000 armor (no idea how realistic that is, not terribly relevant since we're interested in the end % increase)
Ice Armor gives you a bonus 50% armor so 500.
First hit increases that by 85% so 925 armor now.
2nd hit is 1,711 armor
and finally 3rd hit is 3165.
You've gone from a 50% increase (500) to a 316% increase of your armor (3165) bringing you to a total of 4165 armor. Wow, I'm a little surprised by this. Can Wizards have the highest armor in the game??? We don't know reasonable armor numbers, and how the percentage of physical damage reduced works and scales, but a 316% boost to your armor (assuming I did the math correctly and I triple checked it) seems amazing.
Hopefully this will help you realize some of the mistakes you've made. Even if it doesn't at least it will help people who read it after reading your first post.
Channeling could be great for team play. It would be fun watching zombies burn or titans getting frosted. Glad to see everyone has their personal style and opinion. I wouldn't mind using all the trash skills just for fun.
The problem is the vast majority of them aren't trash.
I don't think your build will fly. no AP regen once Disintegrate and Arcane Torrent uses up all your AP.
you also choose Galvanizing Ward over Glass Cannon? Galvanizing Ward seems more like a passive I'd throw in the trash unless I'm playing HC. I'll take increased damage over safety any day on softcore.
The sad thing is that Galvanizing Ward isn't even worth it for Hardcore. And you're right, it's the one ability I know for sure I will never, ever use. (Unless the HP/sec scales with gear) For an idea of life totals, Witch Doctors have a spell with no cost on a 15 second CD that heals for 21,290 if they hit 5 targets with it. Galvanizing Ward can heal that much damage in 665 seconds! Woohoo!! The extra 120 seconds is stupid, armor spells only cost 25 AP and during the 120 seconds they last you'll have a moment of downtime you can afford to refresh it.
There is so much about this thread I disagree with I don't even know where to start.
And I'm not even going to bother since it's all your opinion.
Do you feel better after responding to this thread about how you won't respond to this thread?
I dunno, do you feel better after replying to my thread about not replying to this thread?
Edit: After reading more than the first post you should REALLY edit in to the first post and clarify that you aren't just blanket blacklisting all these skills, but that it's in a very narrow window of view. (Arenas)
Edit 2: As has been stated multiple times on this board and in other places, Diablo III has no immunities.
Or Alabaster Blizzard. Plenty of ways to ensure ideal Meteor damage. Play enough D2 sorc and dropping meteors and hitting moving targets isn't hard.
Yah this was more for my own interest (hence the massive thread I made comparing all the damage spells).
Nice. I'm pretty sure you realize I'm right and have no counterargument.
Let's use some math.
Assumptions:
1 spell a second for non channeled spells, channeled spells deal damage every second. (Fair right?)
1000 base damage to be modified by spells.
7 second time window (1 second for you to cast Arcane Torrent, full 6 seconds of it's effect).
I'm not even going to take into account the fact Crimson Disintegrate requires a set amount of time to reach full damage, I'll start you off at full power. (Meaning in reality your numbers will be slightly lower)
In both cases there is a single enemy and all spells hit.
Now, we both know your spells of choice, Disintegrate and Arcane Torrent combo, both with a Crimson rune.
Your 7 seconds:
1 - Arcane Torrent: 2000 damage.
2 - Disintegrate: 7260 damage.
3 - Disintegrate: 7260 damage
4 - Disintegrate: 7260 damage
5 - Disintegrate: 7260 damage
6 - Disintegrate: 7260 damage
7 - Disintegrate: 7260 damage
Total Damage = 45,560
My spells of choice are going to be Golden Magic Missile and Indigo Meteor.
My 7 seconds:
1 - Meteor: 2920 * 14 = 40,880 damage.
2 - Magic Missile: 1100 damage.
3 - Meteor: 40,880 damage.
I'm actually just going to stop there. Technically with no other spells I'm out of AP after 2 casts with one regen from Magic Missile. Of course, if I had Indigo Energy Armor and Astral Presence I've already shown that you can drop 5 meteors in 8 seconds before you run out of AP.
Anyways, my total damage over just 3 seconds ends up at 82,860.
(Damage over the full 7 seconds can be found in my thread. It's over 120k. Completely destroys Disintegrate, not even a fair fight.)
I'm doing 182% more damage than you in less than half the time.
If anything, the numbers on your combination have DRASTICALLY dropped off compared to the higher cost AP spells.
Edit:
I'm going to further my point. Energy Twister sucks huh?
Spells: Crimson Arcane Torrent and Alabaster Energy Twister (Alabaster to keep it in place, on the target, to ensure fair damage numbers)
One assumption: From beta footage Energy Twister lasts roughly 7 - 10 seconds meaning that in our 7 window time frame the FIRST Twister will still be doing damage on the 7 second mark.
Energy Twister 7 seconds:
1 - Arcane Torrent: 2,000 damage.
2 - Energy Twister: 1,848 damage.
3 - Energy Twister: 1848 * 2 = 3,696 damage
4 - Energy Twister: 1848 * 3 = 5,544 damage
5 - (AP Regen): 1848 * 3 = 5,544 damage
6 - (AP Regen): 1848 * 3 = 5,544 damage
7 - Energy Twister: 1848 * 4 = 7,392 damage
Total Damage = 31,568 damage. That's 69% of the damage of your combo. Remember we even started you off at full charge of Disintegrate ignoring the build up time. We're not even using the top end damage rune in this case, and the fact that we run out of AP in this limited testing case should show that with better regen, and more AP it will pass Disintegrate in damage.
But yes, of course, Energy Twister is clearly complete garbage and should never be used.
That's sarcasm by the way.
You are aware that percentage wise, in relation to each other, the spells do exactly the same amount of damage now as they did before right? The only change is that instead of having flat base numbers, the numbers are scaled off of your weapon damage.
What? English please.
Really? Looks like they're all still there to me.
VERY much so. Especially after looking at other class's passives. It's okay though, they can't drop massive flaming balls from the heavens.
NOTE: I came up with every example build in under 1 minute. I'm not claiming they're amazing or that I'd use them per-say, but I do feel they would work just fine.
INCOMING WALL OF TEXT!
Right, first off you have a MASSIVE issue here. How do you even begin to compare an active skill to a passive? You don't equip them in the same slot, you get 6 actives vs 3 passives, if so many of our passives weren't mediocre they would be a lot more valuable.
Putting that aside your comparison of the two abilities is just flat out wrong. Slow Time is an AoE effect, fixed location spell, with a 30 second cooldown. Temporal Flux is applied to all spells that deal arcane damage, and is only used in builds that focus completely on arcane damage (kind of like your disintegrate obsession, so I don't understand why you wouldn't take this passive).
Now your claim: It lasts longer? How is that possible? With your own math you can channel disintegrate for 4 minutes. That's 4 minutes of slow from Flux. YOu don't even have to stop channeling your Crimson rune to get the slow effect. Seems more effective to me. Better slow? Yah sure. By 11%. Not to mention the fact that we don't know if Flux scales with gear. Even if it doesn't, 11% isn't that much and is a FREE effect, you don't have to use a spell cast to get it's effect like you would for Slow Time. You don't have to hit them? What? Do you even read what you write? How is hitting an enemy with Disintegrate + Flux harder than hitting with Slow Time? That doesn't even make sense!
Here, a flux build with your almighty channeled spells: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#dUkQOm!ZXb!baZYZZ
In a build that only deals arcane damage (so you get maximum effect) flux allows you to take less defensive spells and focus on the damage output.
Again, you're comparing a Passive to an Active (Granted, Familiar is pretty damn passive, but still). I'll say it again, the spells take different slots, you cannot compare them.
Glass Cannon is for sitting in the back, behind your party members, and unleashing hell. Kinda like this build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#dUhOkS!bXV!bZZZZZ
Wow, look at that, Familiar, Crimson Arcane Torrent, AND Glass Cannon! All 3 in one build! With Crimson Slow Time!
For a general wizard yes. For a melee wizard or a Hardcore wizard it could be useful. It's not a "weapon" as you call it, it's defense. When compared to other PASSIVES, yes, it's on the weaker side for sure, especially considering it's our top end one.
From what I've seen in Beta health globes are disgustingly common. Now I imagine that will peter off as you go along meaning that this could be the most OP passive for the first 3 Acts even if it's worthless in Inferno. Once you get to end game, yes, compared to other PASSIVES, it's weaker.
Again your Crimson Disintegrate with Storm Armor, it's like your only argument. Ever. -_-. Prodigy is pretty much required for builds that don't use a Golden Sig spell but still cast Sig spells often. Maybe Indigo Electrocute or Magic Missile. Long story short you need some form of regen other than base to fuel more expensive spells. These might not be the most competitive, top damage dealing builds, but they're going to be fun as hell:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ZRVQOm!YXf!YaYYZa
Yet again with comparing a passive to an active. Not going to go into this again. Just think of this though: Imagine you have 7 stacks of Dynamo. You hit the boss with Crimson Arcane Torrent to get the 120% damage boost, then you cast another sig spell to get your 8th charge. Now you cast Disintegrate and for it's entire channel it does 50% more damage. Lets see.... 40% from Familiar, 120% from Torrent, how about another 140% from Time Warp, and then the 50% from Dynamo. Thats +350% damage on your Disintegrate.
Side Note: I find it amusing you didn't say Crimson Familiar is better as well. A constant 40% boost is stronger than a 50% boost every 12 seconds. Obviously it doesn't work because of the passive vs active aspect, but you did it for Glass Cannon. I guess the math on that was more obvious.
Passive vs Active AGAIN. (Starting to get why I was so disdainful of this post on first read and why so many others think it's a joke?)
Maybe you don't mind dying all the time, but in higher difficulties, especially before you're decked out in final gear, survivability is essential. Not to mention the fact you can use Mirror Image as a 140% damage boost.
Indigo Diamond Skin (and Obsidian) is certainly a powerful defensive tool. It's near impossible to compare it to Teleport however. If you're stuck surrounded by a massive group of enemies being pounded on in melee and shot at from range which would you prefer, Diamond Skin to take a bit of a beating or Teleport to just get the hell out of there?
Build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ihdQRl!dXV!cZbYaa
The fact you so easily discard this skill when it has the potential to be amazing is alarming. This passive is one of two ways wizards have to regen health and this is a %, not even a flat number!! Assuming Galvanizing Ward's HP/sec scales with gear then this would as well. How fast do wands attack? There's so much information we don't have that makes it so you can't just throw this away.
Tentative build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#ahOQRl!cXV!ZZZYaa
So, how often do Images cast spells? Cause see, I imagine this would be used in Arena, meaning they probably cast fairly often, maybe even at max speed, other wise it would be preeeeeety easy to figure out which one was real. Until we know that it's hard to say with this spell. Crimson runed it gives 140% damage increase for 15 seconds. Thats better than your Crimson Arcane Torrent you always bring up both in duration AND the fact that it boost all damage not just arcane AND that it provides a bit of defense at the same time! AND the two spells are both actives!!! OMG!!!! A logical comparison!?
I've used Crimson MI in a few other builds, not going to bother making another.
Meteor is iconic. I get the feeling you haven't played Diablo 2. I can't tell you how many Meteor sorcs I made in that game. I know that it was easily one of the top damage builds (THE top damage for a period of time) and that I spent hours upon hours raining fiery death and it was awesome. Rumors are the 3 sec delay on it falling was removed for this game, even with it I can tell you that I don't miss with Meteor. With delay it takes skill to land, the reward for that skill is massive damage. Indigo runed Meteor is still the highest damage spell the wizard has assuming you can land all 14. How hard it is to do that is the real question.
You say "lower chance of critical than disintegrate" I don;t understand that, where are you even getting that from?
This build is heavily influenced from juba's awesome "look's like it's going to rain" thread: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#PldaQO!bYX!YabZYZ
Not even going to do these three as this is already taking too long and I have a feeling I'm wasting my time with this whole thing regardless.
P.S. There are no immunities.
Alright. At least here we're comparing two actives. First off I don't like Ice Armor at all, but I'm still going to defend it. Lets start with your claim. "There is nothing Ice Armor can do that Slow time with Miasma can't do better, longer, or more reliably." Yah? What about increase your armor by 50%? I wasn't aware Miasma did that.
Now, the huge issue with this spell is that there's SO much unexplained. "...chilling them for 2 seconds." Okay.... what's chilling do? Is that an attack speed reduction? Movement speed? How much?
Does the Frost Nova from the Alabaster rune use the rune you have in Frost Nova if it's among your actives? (could be an awesome way to multi proc that if so). The Indigo Rune makes it so the chill effect is an AoE and doesn't require that you get hit which is awesome, but it doesn't give the numbers for the speed reductions. Then with Golden, if you have enough armor that effect could end up making you ridiculously resistant to physical damage! Math time!
Lets say you have 1000 armor (no idea how realistic that is, not terribly relevant since we're interested in the end % increase)
Ice Armor gives you a bonus 50% armor so 500.
First hit increases that by 85% so 925 armor now.
2nd hit is 1,711 armor
and finally 3rd hit is 3165.
You've gone from a 50% increase (500) to a 316% increase of your armor (3165) bringing you to a total of 4165 armor. Wow, I'm a little surprised by this. Can Wizards have the highest armor in the game??? We don't know reasonable armor numbers, and how the percentage of physical damage reduced works and scales, but a 316% boost to your armor (assuming I did the math correctly and I triple checked it) seems amazing.
Well.... that was quite interesting and kinda made this whole thing worth it.... Here's my new Melee Wizard build!
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#bWXVPS!XUe!babYYZ
Hopefully this will help you realize some of the mistakes you've made. Even if it doesn't at least it will help people who read it after reading your first post.
The problem is the vast majority of them aren't trash.
The sad thing is that Galvanizing Ward isn't even worth it for Hardcore. And you're right, it's the one ability I know for sure I will never, ever use. (Unless the HP/sec scales with gear) For an idea of life totals, Witch Doctors have a spell with no cost on a 15 second CD that heals for 21,290 if they hit 5 targets with it. Galvanizing Ward can heal that much damage in 665 seconds! Woohoo!! The extra 120 seconds is stupid, armor spells only cost 25 AP and during the 120 seconds they last you'll have a moment of downtime you can afford to refresh it.
I dunno, do you feel better after replying to my thread about not replying to this thread?
Edit: After reading more than the first post you should REALLY edit in to the first post and clarify that you aren't just blanket blacklisting all these skills, but that it's in a very narrow window of view. (Arenas)
Edit 2: As has been stated multiple times on this board and in other places, Diablo III has no immunities.
And I'm not even going to bother since it's all your opinion.