DiabloFans

Quote from PiousFlea

Magic Missile is a singletarget spell while Arcane Orb is an AoE. A damage-focused Magic Missile rune hits hard enough to outweigh the AP generation on a singletarget - that's good! If it didn't, it would never be a viable choice for anyone.

However, as soon as you are faced with more than one enemy, being able to cast additional Arcane Orbs vastly outweighs the extra singletarget damage from crimson MM. Or you could socket multi-MM or piercing-MM and increase your AoE power that way.

I think it's good that different runes are better in different scenarios. Life would be pretty boring if one rune was clearly superior to all the others!

That is an excellent point, I guess I never did say these calcs were with single target in mind.

I am sure you are all aware of the general Arcane Torrent & Arcane Orb combo + Magic Missile build. But just in case, here is a link,

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#kea!!ZZb

Arcane Torrent for the debuff followed by an Arcane Orb is no doubt a lethal combination. But, after you have spent your initial AP, the best skill thought to reacquire it in single target combat is a Golden Runed Magic Missle. However, I believe that you may actually do more overall average damage,if you use Charged Blast(Crimson) rather than atonement(Golden) rune in Magic Missile.


We will make a couple of assumptions, just to keep things easy.

Arcane Torrent is used to increase all arcane dmg by 120%.
You have Power of the Storm = -7 AP per cast
And you have no +%cast speed, thus 1 cast per second.

================================================================

Wizard Base AP Regen Rate = +12.5 AP/sec
Astral Presence = +2 AP/sec
Total AP/sec = +14.5 Ap/sec

Golden Magic Missile = +14 AP/cast (Don't miss!!!)
Crimson Magic Missile = 242% wpn dmg
Arcane Orb = -35+7 = -28 AP

================================================================

The Equation is,
W =((242*(a/t-r)+(s/t+r)*(1089))/((a/t+s/t))

a = Arcane power cost
t = cast time
r = AP regen rate
s = AP generated via Signatures
Wg = Avg weapon dmg of Golden Magic Missile
Wc = Avg weapon dmg of Crimson Magic Missile


Wg =((242*(28/1-14.5)+(14/1+14.5)*(1089))/((28/1+14/1)) = 816.75%
Wc =((532.4*(28/1-14.5)+(0/1+14.5)*(1089))/((28/1+0/1)) = 820.6%


Simplified versions,
Wg = (121 (126+2 a+7 r t))/(14+a)
Wc = 532.4+(556.6 r t)/a

Set Wg & Wc equal to one another, Wg=Wc, in order to ascertain what conditions are required for Wg to begin to overtake Wc.

(121 (126+2 a+7 r t))/(14+a) = 532.4+(556.6 r t)/a
Solutions:
a = 161/6 = 26.8333 (Spell cost is always greater than 26.833, thus Not possible)
a = r*t => (a > r & t < 0, thus also impossible)


So, there you have it. You actually do MORE average single target dmg using Crimson Magic Missile rather than Golden Magic Missile in your Arcane Builds. However, the increase is incredibly small and almost certainly a dps loss if there is any AoE involved.