Magic Missile

Magic Missile is a Tier 1 skill from the Wizard's Arcane skill tree, invoking a bolt of arcane magic thrown against an opponent.

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
Mana 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

1 Missile, 7-13 arcane damage, 8 mana

Synergies

None known

Corpses made from Magic Missile glows eerily.

Skill Rune Effects

Hydra rune increases the number of missiles fired with each use of the skill.

Development

Magic Missile was first shown at BlizzCon 2008 in Anaheim as one of the first skills for the Wizard. It was designed as a base level ranged skill. This was the only information originally available about the skill:

Active Skill
Description: Fire 1 missile(s) of energy at your enemies causing 7-13 arcane damage to them. Critical hits from arcane damage silence targets for 4 secs.
Rank: 0/1
Mana cost: 8

At BlizzCon 2008 the spell was the "default" ranged skill for Wizards in the demo. Compared to then, it has received a slight nerf in 2009 down to 3-5 damage and a slightly lower mana cost. However, the primary change was in making several supporting skills redundant with the new skill trees. The skill is likely now designed to get better with just adding skill ranks into it. The following skills used to affect Magic Missile:

Arcane Damage - Increased arcane damage by a percentage
Efficient Magics - Reduced mana cost
Penetrating Spells - Reduced enemy
Arcane Weakness - Caused victims of your spell to take additional damamge from arcane spells for a time
Arcane Speed - Reduced cooldown of Magic Missile
Arcane Distortion - Caused victims of your spell to be slowed for a time
Improved Magic Missile - Increased the number of missiles per cast, and the damage per missile
Mana Burst - Increased the damage, if mana is full before the cast.

Previous Versions:

Magic Missile (BlizzCon 2008)

Double missiles.

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: [1]

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 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

Magic Missile cast by female Wizard.
Killed Zombie glowing.
Female Wizard "missiling".

References