Missile Dampening

Missile Dampening is a Boss Modifier that spawns on bosses (but not Champions) in Diablo III.

One of the rarest of boss affixes, this one only appears on ranged attackers, and functions like a Slow Time bubble around the monster, but one that only affects projectiles. The bubble does nothing to character movement speed or melee attackers, but it greatly reduces the speed of all incoming shots.

Missile Dampening.

The shots are just slowed, though. There's no change in their damage, and they don't dissipate; they just take longer to get to the target. Plus, while they are hanging there in super slow motion, any monster who moved into them takes the full damage of potentially dozens of shots all at once.

Missile Dampening

• Monster Level Minimum: 31
• Available to: Bosses only.
• Damage Type: n/a
• Additional Resistances: n/a
• Can Not Spawn With: Avenger, Extra Health, Health Link, Horde, Illusionist, Invulnerable Minions, Shielding, Vampiric.

Strategy

Melee attackers need not alter their strategy in any way, since this affix makes no difference to them. For ranged attackers though, this modifier is a complete game changer as it makes any shot at the boss take much longer to arrive. Since only the boss is protected, all of the minions can be killed off normally.

Media

The visual of this effect just looks like a boss with a Slow Time bubble around it. The funny part is when numerous missiles get dampened at once, stack up into an almost solid block of pain, and then a monster moves into them, taking dozens of hits in very rapid succession. This is best with skills that can deal multiple hits, such as Lightning Ball. Nether Tentacles no longer works this way as that rune effect was hot fixed to not hit repeatedly, but its one time property can still be seen in the video below.

Gallery

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  Mod in action.

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  Slowing down a Scoundrel's arrows.