Magic Missile

Magic Missile is a Wizard Tier 1 skill unlocked at level 2, invoking a bolt of arcane magic thrown against an opponent.

Contents

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]
Magic Missile Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Wizard
Skill Description:
Fire 1 missile(s) of energy at your enemies causing 3-5 arcane damage to them. Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 secs.
Skill Details:
Type:	Damage
Quantity:	None
Effect:	Bolt
School:	Arcane
Arcane Power cost:	8
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	4 sec
Cooldown:	Unknown
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

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

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.

Note that Improved Magic Missile and other related skills are. Perhaps permanently, perhaps just for now. It seemed a bit redundant in 2008, since the listed function was to increase the number of missiles and boost their damage. And since there are skill runes that do both of those things to skills, and equipment that boosts the damage, Improved MM seemed sort of pointless.

Skill Rank Table

Corpses made from Magic Missile glows eerily.

• Rank 1: Fires a missile of energy, doing 3-5 Arcane damage.

Synergies

Magic Missile benefits directly from the following Wizard traits:

• Glass Cannon: Increases damage done by spells and increases armor.
• Intimidation: Increases damage done and reduces vendor costs.
• Quickening: Increases spell casting speed.
• Beast Hunter: Damage bonus against beasts.
• Demonsbane: Damage bonus against Demons.
• Just...Stay...Dead!: Damage bonus against undead.
• Temporal Flux: Enemies that have been hit by your Arcane spells are slowed down by 25% for 3 seconds.
• Power Surge: Increase critical strike damage.
• Penetrating Spells: Reduces the resistances of your target to your spells by 20%.

Note: The current trait list is very out-of-date and will no doubt be overhauled before game release.

Skill Rune Effects

Double missiles.

• Indigo rune: Increases the number of missiles fired with each use of the skill.
• Alabaster rune: Makes the Magic Missile a homing missile.
• Crimson rune: Increases the damage of each missile.

Development

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. This skill was on the Arcane Skill Tree untill 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!

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.

Magic Missile 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

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".

References

• BlizzCon 2008 Wizard gameplay report
• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• BlizzCon 2010 Wizard Hands-on Report