Magic Weapon

Magic Weapon is a Utility Wizard skill unlocked at Level 7, making her weapon magical and increasing damage.

Contents

Background

Magic Weapon in action

When the need for physical combat arrives, the Wizard is well prepared, fusing her weapon with magical energies, cutting deeper into her foes even when using such a mundane thing as a physical weapon.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Magic Weapon 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.

Icon	Skill	Description

{{{icon}}}

[[{{{name}}}]] Conjuration

20

{{{desc}}}

|

| Ignite | Melee attacks burn enemies with fire for 70% of weapon damage for 3 seconds. |-

|

| Electrify | Melee attacks cause lightning to arc to 8 nearby enemies dealing 18% of weapon damage as Lightning damage. |-

|

| Force Weapon | Increases damage bonus to 34% physical damage, and gives a 45% chance to knock back any enemies hit. |-

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| Conduit | Melee hits restore 10% Arcane Power. |-

|

| Blood Magic | Melee hits recover 45% of damage caused as Life. |-

|}

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

Skill Design

This skill is clearly designed to enable a Wizard to play in the Battle-mage style, going melee combat for better or worse. The Wizard isn't really designed for that approach, but by pairing the melee damage with excellent equipment/weapon, and some intelligent spell use, it may be a viable build.

This direction would've been useful in Diablo II, what with all the "unique" builds, including the melee Sorceress. The question is if that kind of diversity will exist in Diablo III, or else this skill seems useless.

Synergies

• No synergies with any of the Wizard passives are yet known.

Development

Magic Weapon was first shown at BlizzCon 2008, when the Wizard debuted. Back then, it was a Tier V skill in the Conjuring Skill Tree. Together with spells like the VERY similar Weapon Mastery (gone), Damage Resistance (gone) and Spectral Blade (still in), it gave a hint of seeing the Wizard getting the capability of going melee.

Magic Weapon was also shown at BlizzCon 2009, but was unfortunately too high level to try out by the fans. There were, however, still doubts about the viability of a melee build, as Flux elucidated:[1]

One of the odder Wizard skills, seemingly designed for a melee fighting Wizard. We don’t know enough about weapon damage in general to have any idea if this is a big bonus or not. Nor do we know if this damage is boosted by attributes and +magical damage item modifiers. If so it’s possible that some Wizard builds could deal very good weapon damage. On the other hand, there are enough limits on which classes can use which weapons that Wizards might be limited in their melee damage no matter what they tried.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Magic Weapon became a level 7 skill.

Previous Versions

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

Media

Magic Weapon can be seen in action on video here:

• No videos yet.

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

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

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Silva's Wizard Runestone Effects -- IncGamers 5th Sep 2011
• Wizard Active Skills -- Diablo III 12th Sep 2011

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer primary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer secondary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer corpses

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer bloodandbone

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses