Mouse Skills:Spectral Blade (Thrown Blade)
Blizzard (Snowbound)
Hotbar Skills:Ray of Frost (Snow Blast)
Frost Nova (Frozen Mist)
Hydra (Frost Hydra)
Ice Armor (Chilling Aura)
Passive Skills:Cold Blooded
Astral Presence
Glass Cannon
Spectral Blade is your only skill here that’s not going to be dealing Cold damage. As the overall most damaging and outright powerful Primary skill that the Wizard can use, it goes with Thrown Blade to ensure that enemies can be injured at nearly any range and nearly any time. Since it doesn’t care about intervening obstacles and affects the entire cone, it not only is useful against hordes but also with tactical positioning around walls and obstacles. Blizzard is equally useful against large groups of enemies, especially with Snowbound bringing its cost down below half. A good basic combination attack is to drop a Blizzard and then shred everything in it with Thrown Blade.
Ice Armor is your armor of choice here- not only does it lock up melee attackers to give you a chance to flee, but Chilling Aura makes absolutely certain that anything daring to come near you is going to be slowed and, via Cold Blooded, taking extra damage from everything- including other party members and followers you happen to have along with you. Hydra gives you an independent and indestructible source of chilling and slowing, so you can plant it either in the back lines of the enemy to take out their casters, or near your melee allies to improve their damage. Frost Nova’s Frozen Mist form lets you lay down an area of chilling damage- so when you need to retreat you can leave this behind, and then drop Blizzard and Spectral Blade away. Ray of Frost is here in Snow Blast form because it really is the most damaging thing you have as a Wizard- particularly with the boost from Cold Blooded on it in addition to Glass Cannon. Don’t bother with this on groups of enemies- this is your tool for utterly destroying bosses, Champions, and unique monsters.
Cold Blooded and Glass Cannon are obvious choices here, collectively giving your damage numbers a heck of a kick in the seat of the pants. The third partner, Astral Presence, is a bit less obvious- its main purpose is in giving you the best initial Arcane Power pool possible, so you can really rip into a boss with Snow Blast. It has the happy side effect of also letting you Blizzard that much more, so feel free to take advantage of that.
When you’re facing a melee boss like the Butcher, Iskatu, or Diablo, you’re going to want to swap out Glass Cannon- it’s just too much of a liability in such fights. Fortunately, you can swap it with its near-mirror Blur, which will protect you in melee- and let you Snow Blast those bosses that much longer before you have to scoot out of the way. Alternatively, you could swap it with Arcane Dynamo thanks to your usual pattern of Blizzard-Blade-Blade-Blade and pull off some nasty single-cast damage with Blizzard or Snow Blast, but Arcane Dynamo is a bit hard to feed properly.
