Disintegrate (20 Arcane Power per second): You project a beam straight forwards that penetrates all enemies and ends at the edge of the screen, dealing 155% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies struck and disintegrating their corpses if it kills them.
Disintegrate deals considerably less damage than Ray of Frost, but has two major advantages over the earlier skill that can recommend it for use most of the time. First of all, it hits everything in a line, making it vastly more effective against groups of enemies or enemies with ranged counterparts who stay behind them, who can all be simultaneously killed rather than destroying the one in front first. Secondly, it doesn’t leave a corpse- this isn’t always significant, but certain enemies like the Fallen can be reanimated by some of their commanders, and there are a number of poisonous enemies in Act II that leave behind corpses which let out clouds of damaging poison gas. Disintegrate obliterates their corpses, preventing both resurrection and the gas clouds, so it works much batter than Ray of Frost in those situations. Ray of Frost remains better for handling most bosses, though, since its damage is much higher and it has a Slow effect.
Convergence (20 Arcane Power per second): You project a beam two yards wide straight forwards that penetrates all enemies and ends at the edge of the screen, dealing 155% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies struck and disintegrating their corpses if it kills them.
Convergence is a massive upgrade for Disintegrate, improving its effectiveness against groups immensely. The breadth of the beam lets it catch more than twice as many targets as before, so during non-boss situations it can be an amazing boon.
Chaos Nexus (20 Arcane Power per second): You project a beam straight forwards that penetrates all enemies and ends at the edge of the screen, dealing 155% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies struck and disintegrating their corpses if it kills them. While you are firing this beam, enemies that come within 8 yards of you are targeted by smaller beams that deal 40% weapon damage as Arcane damage per second.
Chaos Nexus lets you use Disintegrate in one direction while punishing enemies that come towards you for trying to hit you while you’re rooted to the ground. This would be much more useful if the damage were more significant, as 40% weapon damage per second isn’t very strong at all. It is, however, enough to kill off smaller minions fairly quickly, so paired with Ice Armor or Storm Armor it can do fairly well at protecting you. It would be a lot better if it also always hit enemies within the shorter range- but instead you get a random number of sub-beams at any given time, each damaging only one enemy- typically 3-5 beams at once, and they will occasionally change targets or deactivate and reactivate at random. On the other hand, they can target enemies who are already being struck by the main beam, so it’s not as bad as it could be.
Volatility (20 Arcane Power per second): You project a beam straight forwards that penetrates all enemies and ends at the edge of the screen, dealing 155% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies struck and disintegrating their corpses if it kills them. 35% of the time the corpse will instead explode and deal 395% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies within 8 yards.
This is the rune for using Disintegrate against clusters of enemies- by sending the beam through the middle of the group and killing three or four enemies there, you can be relatively sure of dealing massive damage to the enemies not being hit by the beam. The chance is low enough that it’s unlikely you’ll get more than one explosion from any given line of enemies, but the damage is still plenty to have an impact. All in all, not a bad rune, though not as reliable as Convergence.
Entropy (20 Arcane Power per second): You project a 120-degree cone 15 yards long of disintegration that deals 178% weapon damage as Arcane damage per second to all enemies in its area.
While initially Entropy seems like an amazing idea for dealing heavy damage in a large cone near you, the fact is that it is less effective at dealing damage than most forms of Spectral Blade, and only has a slightly longer cone. This makes it a poor choice of rune, given it’s outshone by a free-cost skill that can itself be runed. Not a rune to use if you can help it.
Intensify (20 Arcane Power per second): You project a beam straight forwards that penetrates all enemies and ends at the edge of the screen, dealing 155% weapon damage as Arcane damage to all enemies struck and disintegrating their corpses if it kills them. The longer the beam continually deals damage to a target, the more damage it deals, to a maximum of 205% weapon damage as Arcane damage per second.
The mirror to Snow Blast, Intensify is weaker in damage to a rather drastic degree- its maximum damage is actually less than the starting damage of Snow Blast. This makes it a poor choice for boss fights- but the piercing effect of the line and corpse-removal effect make it pretty completely superior for non-boss situations. If you like being a Void Ray, you should probably be swapping between this and Snow Blast and working on your aim to make sure you stay focused on the target you want to kill the most.
