Diablo III- Skills Article CLXXXXV: Wizard Elective Mode Build Two- Walk With Arcane

Mouse Skills:
Magic Missile (Attunement)
Energy Twister (Mistral Breeze)
Hotbar Skills:
Meteor (Star Pact) OR Arcane Orb (Arcane Nova)
Disintegrate (Intensify OR Convergence)
Familiar (Arcanot)
Energy Armor (Energy Tap)
Passive Skills:
Temporal Flux
Astral Presence
Prodigy

This build almost reads like an Arcane Power Flow build- but rather than leaning heavily on channeled effects and things that cost huge amounts of Arcane Power, it instead focuses on dealing Arcane damage in large areas.

Magic Missile is the second fastest Primary skill available to a Wizard, and it’s one of the two most reliable for generating Arcane Power via its rune, Attunement.  This makes it your choice of recharge skill- especially since it still deals Arcane damage and can thus be used to kite something while you wait for more resources.  Mistral Breeze makes Energy Twister startlingly inexpensive, and it’s an area-of-effect Arcane damage source.  Yes, it’s uncontrollable, but at that cost you don’t really mind the issue nearly as much, especially with all the boosts you’ve got to Arcane Power generation here.

Your first Hotbar skill is a very personal choice- Star Pact Meteor and Arcane Nova Arcane Orb both have the exact same Arcane Power cost, but they function differently enough to make the choice hard.  The Meteor is going to deal heavier damage by quite a bit, but the damage is to a smaller area and you have to wait a second and a half for it to arrive- but it also leaves behind a patch of continual damage.  Arcane Nova, on the other hand, has a much larger area and happens right away- but it deals far less damage, has no lasting effect, and since it’s launched from you, you can’t use it against back-line enemies and it can get stopped en route by an enemy that jumps in the way.

Either way, Disintegrate is your resource dump here, using its piercing effect to nail an entire line of enemies with slowing.  If you want the slow from it badly, use Convergence to get a much larger area of effect.  If you’re more concerned with things killing you even at a distance, pick Intensify just to scrape together a bit more damage.  Arcanot is an obvious choice here, providing not only an independently targeting source of Arcane damage, but also funding you with even more Arcane Power to throw whirlwinds, balls of power, and even longer-lasting Disintegrate rays.  If you find that the extra Arcane Power benefit is unnecessary, then Hydra (Arcane Hydra) can be a good thing to plant behind your enemies, especially if you’ve taken Arcane Nova instead of Star Pact.  Finally, Energy Armor (Energy Tap) not only provides you with even more Arcane Power, it keeps you alive when things -do- reach you, giving you a chance to get another couple hits in to keep them from catching up before you back off.

In your passive skills, Temporal Flux is obvious.  Prodigy doubles the Arcane Power refund off of Magic Missile- a useful alternative is Galvanizing Ward, giving you the healing you need to cope with incoming damage from anything ranged.  Astral Presence further boosts your Arcane Power, both in regeneration and initial pool size.