QF-QF-QF-A-S. Right-click cast.
Try it out. You can gib one of the heavily armoured trolls in five seconds or less.
Actually, if you tweak this to 1 steam, 1 lightning, 3 arcane it will do a bit more damage. Minimal...but it does also take a bit less to cast. ( 5 buttons instead of 8 )
Oh, and for those curious...this doesn't do just a bit more damage than normal spells...it does A LOT more.
EX: The most powerful beam using normal elements does just over 16,000 damage total. ( Remember to use Vlad to test things. )
This steam laser does over 35,000 damage. That's over double...assuming you are using the full Lightning, Fire, Arcanex3 for comparison.
Generally you don't need to bother with the freeze rays...because stuff doesn't live long enough to get to you anyways, lol. Plus, the added benefit of being much more usable in multiplayer, where playing with water and cold can be bad for allies
2. If the enemies are fast or very numerous (weak goblins for example), spam arcane area spell (hold shift and repeatedly cast A). For extra damage I like to glide my fingers over ASF while holding shift between each cast so I can get the burn effect and do some extra damage (someone else posted this above also)
AoE spams can be great...when you make sure to give room to any allies
If you practice the above Steam Beam, it also makes an insane AoE. ( Steam+Lightning+Arcanex3 for about 2300 damage per mob. )
Oh, and no: If the target is already wet, it is NOT better to remove the steam and use something else. The multiplicative effect of using different elements still makes the steam version better. ( Using 4 arcane and 1 lightning on a wet target only netted something in the 20k range somewhere. )
Edit: I also forgot to mention, but the Arcanes are what cause the mob to do damage on exploding. So, having 3 causes them to do quite a bit of exploding damage....just be careful when mobs get close. It can take a good half of your life in 1 explosion.