Spectral Blade

Spectral Blade is a Rapid Cast Wizard skill unlocked at Level 5, dealing powerful damage in melee range.

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

Background

Spectral Blade in action.

Spectral Blade is used for Wizards willing to meet their enemies toe to toe. It's a powerful melee spell that will kill most enemies early on.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Spectral Blade 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
Spectral Blade 5		Summon a spectral blade that strikes all enemies in your path 3 times causing 35% weapon damage with each hit. This is an Academic spell. Academic spells cost 1 less Arcane Power every time you gain a level.
	Deep Cuts	Enemies hit by the blade will bleed for an additional X% weapon damage done over X seconds.
	Thrown Blade	Extends the blades out to reach everything within X yards dealing X% weapon damage.
	Impactful Blades	Hits have a X% chance to cause knockback and slow the movement of enemies by X% for X seconds.
	Siphoning Blade	Every enemy hit grants X Arcane Power.
	Healing Blades	Whenever the blades do critical damage, you are healed X% of the damage caused.

Skill Design

Mirror Images casting Spectral Blade.

This skill was the default left click attack at the BlizzCon 2008 build, and also used heavily in the BlizzCon 2009 demo and it worked quite nicely. It was a melee+spell, hitting anything up close with all 3 slashes, but extending the slashes far enough that targets out of melee range would be hit by one or perhaps two of the attacks. Each slash could also strike multiple targets, making this one potentially quite damaging against multiple, close-range enemies.

There is a slight casting delay on Spectral Blade, making it too slow to stun lock enemies. A Wizard who uses this one at the point blank range where it's most effective will be hit back by any targets who do not succumb to the first assault.

This spell was tweaked since the BlizzCon 2008 version, when it did 1-6 damage per hit, but hit 1-3 times. That allowed a huge spread of damage, from 1-18, and the team must have found it worked better to keep this low level skill a bit more predictable in damage range.

Synergies

Wizard cleaving some Zombies.

• No synergies with any of the passive skills are yet known.

Development

Spectral Blade was first shown at BlizzCon 2008 when the Wizard was unveiled, as a Tier I skill in the Conjuring Skill Tree. Originally, it dealt 1-6 damage with 1-3 hits, so it could do 1-18 damage with each use, meaning it required some strategy to use effectively. Also, it wasn't the best skill in all situations, as Flux explained:[1]

It’s not a spell that can be used machine gun style though, even if enemies are in range. There’s a short delay after each cast, a cool down that’s longer than the Wizard has with her projectile spells. As a result Spectral Blade doesn’t look like a real boss-killer. It also didn’t seem to stun or interrupt the attacking motion of monsters, the way melee attacks sometimes did, so it’s not a way to render targets helpless while you slash them to bits.

It was changed slightly in the BlizzCon 2009 version, increasing the number of hits to always be 3, but lowering the damage per hit instead to even it out, removing some of the strategy involved in using it. Flux gave details:[2]

Last year, 3 hits were usually granted on point blank targets, while enemies at the edge of the skill’s range (who were generally not yet in melee range of the Wizard) were most likely to take just a single hit. I didn’t actually use this one much, with so many other, more interesting spells on offer, (and since I very seldom allowed enemies to get into melee range) so I can’t say if it really does always hit three times, but it was very effectively putting down almost anything I hit with it.

At BlizzCon 2010, Flux found its short range to be a handicap:[3]

I used it a few times in the demo this year; it did potentially more damage than MM, even with fewer skill points, but the melee range thing isn’t what you want to be doing with a Wizard. Better you kill them from a distance with MM than use a slightly more damaging skill at melee range, when they can hit you back. Being hit is for grunting meat shields like Barbarians and Monks; sophisticated classes like Wizards don’t like to get their uniforms smudged by filthy monster paws.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Spectral Blade became a level 5 skill.

Previous Versions

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

Media

Spectral Blade can be seen in action on video here:

• Cinematic: Wizard
• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008
• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2010 (in the Arena)

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

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Spectral Blade specific gallery contents

• 

  Spectral Blade in action.

• 

  Mirror Images casting Spectral Blades.

• 

  Closeup of the blades.

Related Articles

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

References

• BlizzCon 2008 Wizard Gameplay Report
• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• BlizzCon 2010 Wizard Hands-on Report
• BlizzCon 2010 PvP 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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