Magic Missile

Magic Missile is a Rapid Cast Wizard skill unlocked at Level 1, invoking a bolt of arcane magic thrown against an opponent.

This is an Academic spell. Academic spells cost 1 less Arcane Power every time you gain a level.

Background

Magic Missile in action

The Magic Missile is a bolt-type spell much like the classical Firebolt but using Arcane energies instead of Elemental (like Fire).

Skill Effects

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

Skill		Effect
Magic Missile Academic (Level 1)		Launch a missile of magic energy causing 40 - 61 Arcane damage. Cost: 0 Arcane Power This is a Signature spell. Signature spells cost 1 less Arcane Power every time you gain a level.
	Charged Blast	Damage increased to 88 - 135 Arcane damage.
	Fork	Fires 8 missiles that do 20 - 31 damage each.
	Penetrating Blast	Missiles have a 100% chance to pierce through their target and hit additional targets.
	Attunement	Whenever Magic Missile hits a target you gain 14 Arcane Power.
	Seeker	Missiles track the nearest target and damage is increased to 72 - 110 Arcane damage.

Note: Information is based on a level 60 character and rank 7 runestones.

Magic Missile Video

A video of Magic Missile can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel.

Skill Design

Magic Missile impact on Zombie.

Magic Missile is basically a Firebolt that deals Arcane Damage. In early levels, Magic Missile might be the Wizard's bread and butter. Using this skill fires a small purple projectile that moves across the screen in a straight line and at a fairly fast pace, and it can be cast repeatedly without any cooldown.

In later levels, it might prove invaluable as a cheap and direct means of silencing a monster for 4 seconds -- plenty of time to dispatch of them before they can cast a nasty spell on you, or raise the fallen to fight again. This property hasn't been explained yet, but the consensus is that a silenced monster will be unable to use some of its skills or abilities, such as Skeletal Mages losing the ability to resurrect their slain minions. The difficulty will be in hitting the shaman behind the minions, since Magic Missile will strike another monster if it's between the Wizard and the targeted boss.

When an enemy dies at the hands of an Arcane spell, a purple glow is left on the corpses.

This was the default ranged spell at BlizzCon 2008, but with Arcane Orb and Electrocute available right from the start in 2009, Magic Missile was hardly touched. It didn't seem to have changed in function since 2008.

Synergies

Magic Missile benefits from the following passive skills:

Temporal Flux is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 45, which adds a slowing effect to enemies the Wizard hits for Arcane spell damage.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Temporal Flux</skill>

Design

This seems like a hugely useful skill for any Wizard who uses much Arcane damage. Arcane's critical strike effect is silence, so having a way to also slow enemies with that spell type would be very effective.

Synergies

No synergies with any active skills or other Wizard passives are known.

Development

Passive skills have had a long and storied history. When Diablo III debuted at the WWI 2008, skill trees included passive skills, much like in Diablo II. In 2010, it was announced that passive skills had been renamed traits and separated out from active skills. At the July 2011 Press Event, Blizzard announced that passive skills were once again in the game, replacing the traits system. When traits were changed back to passive skills in early 2011, Temporal Flux was moved directly from a low-level trait to a level 21 passive.

Beta

When the beta started in September 2011, Temporal Flux was dropped to level 10. When passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Temporal Flux was moved up to level 45.

Previous Versions

• Temporal Flux (trait) - As a trait.

See the traits page for more details on previous versions of this and many other passive skills.

References

• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report — IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Wizard Passive Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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Prodigy is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 20, which grants Arcane Power every time the Wizard casts a Signature spell.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Prodigy</skill>

Synergies

No synergies with any active skills or other Wizard passives are known.

Development

Passive skills have had a long and storied history. When Diablo III debuted at the WWI 2008, skill trees included passive skills, much like in Diablo II. In 2010, it was announced that passive skills had been renamed traits and separated out from active skills. At the July 2011 Press Event, Blizzard announced that passive skills were once again in the game, replacing the traits system.

Beta

Prodigy was not seen until it showed up in the Diablo III beta as a level 15 passive. When passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Prodigy was moved to level 20.

References

• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Wizard Passive Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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Arcane Dynamo is a Wizard passive skill unlocked at Level 29, which powers up the Wizard's next non-signature spell by using Signature spells.

Description

Name	Level	Description

<skill class="Wizard">Arcane Dynamo</skill>

Synergies

Signature spells are required to gain Flashes of Light.

• Signature spells

Development

Passive skills have had a long and storied history. When Diablo III debuted at the WWI 2008, skill trees included passive skills, much like in Diablo II. In 2010, it was announced that passive skills had been renamed traits and separated out from active skills. At the July 2011 Press Event, Blizzard announced that passive skills were once again in the game, replacing the traits system.

Beta

Arcane Dynamo was not seen until it showed up in the Diablo III beta as a level 28 passive. For the Beta Patch 13, it became a level 29 skill, and when passives were reorganized for Beta Patch 14, Arcane Dynamo was moved up to level 55.

References

• HardRock's Wizard Passive Skills — IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Wizard Passive Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

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Development

Double missiles.

Quadruple missiles.

Magic Missile first appeared at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard debuted, where it did 7-13 arcane damage at level 1. By BlizzCon 2009, it had been nerfed slightly, doing less damage and costing a little less mana (later changed to Arcane Power). This skill was on the Arcane Skill Tree until skill trees were disbanded.

At BlizzCon 2010, Magic Missile was one of the Wizard's starting skills, and a very useful one, according to Flux:[1]

The level five MMs were quite powerful, capable of killing almost any normal monster with a single shot. The casting rate wasn’t that fast though, which was good and bad. Good because you could cast MMs forever, since they weren’t fast or expensive enough to deplete your Arcane Power. Bad because I wanted to kill faster. Faster!

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Magic Missile became a level 1 skill.

Previous Versions

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

In Other Games

Magic Missile is much like Diablo II's Sorceress skill Fire Bolt, only doing Arcane damage instead of Fire damage.

Trivia

In Diablo III, Blizzard seems to have gone back to games like Dungeons & Dragons for inspiration. A spell called Magic Missile is a staple low-to-mid level magic bolt in the traditional pen & paper RPG. The Magic Missile also increases number of missiles, as does the original. Wikipedia describes D&D Magic Missile like this.

A bolt of pure energy from the caster's fingertips, which in most editions of the game never misses its target unless prevented by magical means. The number of bolts one can cast increases with practice.

Media

Magic Missile can be seen in action on video here:

• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008
• Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects
• Gameplay: July 2011
• Video: August 2011 Wizard Skill Animations

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Magic Missile specific gallery contents

• 

  Magic Missile cast by female Wizard.

• 

  Killed Zombie glowing.

• 

  Female Wizard "missiling".

• 

  Magic Missile multi-shot.

Related Articles

• Improved Magic Missile is a retired skill whose only purpose was to increase the efficiency of Magic Missile. Skill runes made it unnecessary.

References

• BlizzCon 2008 Wizard gameplay report
• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• BlizzCon 2010 Wizard Hands-on Report
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Silva's Wizard Runestone Effects -- IncGamers 5th Sep 2011

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