Wave of Force

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From Diablo Wiki

Wave of Force in action.

Wave of Force is a Force Wizard skill unlocked at Level 9, creating a force wave from the Wizard, repelling enemies and projectiles.

Background

The Wizard uses pure Arcane force to push objects, projectiles and enemies alike away from her. The force is primary pushing targets rather than hurting them.

Skill Rune Effects

The following is a very quick summary. See the Wave of Force rune effects page for a more thorough description of rune effects, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, screenshots, blue quotes, and much more.

Name	Level	Description

Wave of Force
(database)
Force

9

Cost: 25 Arcane Power

Cooldown: 15 seconds

Discharge a wave of pure energy that repels projectiles and knocks back nearby enemies. This also slows the movement of enemies by 60% and deals 200% weapon damage as Physical.

Impactful Wave
(database)

15

Increases the distance enemies are knocked back and Stuns all affected enemies for 2 seconds.

Force Affinity
(database)

22

Reduce casting cost to 15 Arcane Power and the cooldown is reduced to 12 seconds.

Forceful Wave
(database)

32

Increases damage to 260% weapon damage as Physical, but reduces Knockback.

Teleporting Wave
(database)

39

Enemies caught in the Wave of Force have a 100% chance to be randomly teleported.

Exploding Wave
(database)

49

Enemies hit have a 40% chance to cause a smaller Wave of Force that deals 100% weapon damage as Physical and knocks back enemies caught in its wake.

Skill Design

This defensive spell casts a nova-like blast of light that deals just minor damage, but that shoves back enemies and projectiles.

Wave of Force is used twice in the Wizard Trailer released at BlizzCon 2008. The first is used in a room of skeletons -- it does little damage to the skeletons, but blasts all the destructibles in the room to glorious pieces. In the second example, the Wizard uses it while slowing down time, waiting for a group of skeletons' projectiles to come close, and then reflecting them back toward them.

It's hard to know how many scenarios in a fast-paced game like this where you could really benefit from using Slow Time and then Wave of Force to repel projectiles -- Out of the 8 projectiles in the above screenshot, only one or two actually came back to strike their targets. It will be interesting to see what practical uses there are for this spell as more gameplay videos unfold.

Female Wizard slams skeletons in front of King Leoric in this shot from the beta.

Synergies

The following Wizard passives provide a benefit to Wave of Force, runed or not:

Name	Level	Description

Evocation
(database)
Passive

13

Reduces all cooldowns by 15%.

Glass Cannon
(database)
Passive

16

Increases all damage done by 15%, but decreases Armor and resistances by 10%.

Critical Mass
(database)
Passive

50

Critical Hits have a chance to reduce the cooldown of your spells by 1 second.

Arcane Dynamo
(database)
Passive

55

When you deal damage with a Signature spell you may gain a Flash of Insight. After 5 Flashes of Insight, your next non-Signature spell deals 75% additional damage.

The following skills are Signature spells:
Magic Missile
Shock Pulse
Spectral Blade
Electrocute

Development

Skeleton smash.

Wave of Force was first shown at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard was unveiled, as a Tier II skill on the Arcane Skill Tree. Unfortunately, Flux (and other demo players) found little use for defensive skills:[1]

Sadly, I never used it, since it’s basically a defensive skill that wasn’t needed in the Blizzcon Demo. It’s demonstrated in the Blizzcon gameplay movies though, and looks pretty fun. Wave of Force casts a nova-like ring of energy that blasts out from the Wizard, shoving back enemies and reflecting projectiles towards their source. The possibilities created when teaming this with Slow Time are fun to contemplate.

Wave of Force was available at BlizzCon 2009, where it lost a little bit of damage and had a lot lower mana cost. This skill was also available at BlizzCon 2010, but it wasn't one of the Wizard's starting skills.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, allowing skills to unlock steadily from levels 1 to 30. Consequently, all skill levels were adjusted and Wave of Force became a level 4 skill.

Beta

The Diablo III Beta started in September 2011, and while it ran, all of the skills continued to undergo extensive iteration. Skill changes varied from changing the levels the skills are unlocked, to changes in resource cost, damage, and even function. A few skills were removed altogether, and a few new ones were added. Also, the entire skill system received an overhaul with the Beta Patch 13 update in February 2012, with physical runes replaced by rune effects that automatically unlock at various levels for the different skills.

Wave of Force remained at level 4 when the beta started. Flux thought it fun but still pretty useless in the early game found in the beta:[2]

...it’s purely a support skill in the beta. The long cooldown ensures that, and even if not, the range is fairly limited, compared to your real attack skills like Arcane Orb, Electrocute, and Disintegrate. By the time you get close enough to hit any ranged attacker with Frost Nova or this, your Wizard is getting nailed by all incoming projectiles, not to mention the melee attackers you are running past to get to the back row.

With the Patch 13 changes, Wave of Force was classified as an Arcane skill and moved to level 9. For March's Beta Patch 14, Wave of Force was nerfed slightly, and the "Arcane" category was renamed "Force".

Previous Versions

See the Wizard skill archive for more details on previous versions of Wave of Force and other Wizard skills.
Or see Wave of Force (BlizzCon 2008) for the original version of this skill.

Media

Wave of Force can be seen in action on video here:

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

Wizard casting Wave of Force in a small room.
Using WoF to repel skeletons when fighting King Leoric.
Slow Time with WoF to throw spells back at casters.
Blasting skeletons with Force.

References

BlizzCon 2008 Wizard Gameplay Report
BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report — IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
Silva's Wizard Runestone Effects — IncGamers 5th Sep 2011
Wizard Beta Skills Mega-report: Part One — IncGamers 4th Oct 2011
Wizard Active Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

Fan-made Classes			Fan-made Skills [e]
• Alchemist • Arcane Warrior • Artisan • Aurian Mage • Bard • Channeller • Dragon Warrior	• Flagellant • Giant (U) • Hollow Man • Nomad • Onaga Manji • Phase Knight	• Ranger • Slayer (U) • Techpriest (U) • Telepath • Untainted (U) • Zealot	Dragon Warrior Skills • Bow and Throwing Skill Tree • Dragon Disciplines Skill Tree • Martial Arts Skill Tree	Untainted Skills • Divine Skill Tree • Void Skill Tree • Wrath Skill Tree	Aurian Mage Skill • Holy Power Skill Tree • Shadow Spells Skill Tree • Nature Forces Skill Tree
(U) = Unfinished

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