Magic Weapon

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The bubbling purple effect.

Magic Weapon is a Conjuration Wizard skill unlocked at Level 20, making her weapon magical and increasing damage.

Background

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 Rune Effects

The following is a very quick summary. See the Magic Weapon rune effects page for a more thorough description of rune effects, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, screenshots, blue quotes, and much more.

Name	Level	Description

Magic Weapon
(database)
Conjuration

20

Cost: 25 Arcane Power

Imbue your weapon with magical energy, granting it 10% increased damage. Lasts 5 minutes.

Electrify
(database)

27

Attacks have a chance to cause lightning to arc to 3 nearby enemies, dealing 10% weapon damage as Lightning.

Force Weapon
(database)

35

Increases the damage bonus of Magic Weapon to 15% damage, and gives up to a 2% chance to Knockback any enemies hit.

Conduit
(database)

38

Attacks have a chance to restore 1 Arcane Power.

Venom
(database)

46

Attacks poison enemies, dealing 15% weapon damage as Poison over 3 seconds.

Blood Magic
(database)

55

Attacks recover 1.5% of damage caused as Life.

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 defensive spell use, it may be a viable build.

Synergies

The following Wizard passives provide a benefit to Magic Weapon, runed or not:

Name	Level	Description

Glass Cannon
(database)
Passive

16

Increases all damage done by 15%, but decreases Armor and resistances by 10%.

Arcane Dynamo
(database)
Passive

55

When you deal damage with a Signature spell you may gain a Flash of Insight. After 5 Flashes of Insight, your next non-Signature spell deals 75% additional damage.

The following skills are Signature spells:
Magic Missile
Shock Pulse
Spectral Blade
Electrocute

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, allowing skills to unlock steadily from levels 1 to 30. Consequently, all skill levels were adjusted and Magic Weapon became a level 7 skill.

Beta

The Diablo III Beta started in September 2011, and while it ran, all of the skills continued to undergo extensive iteration. Skill changes varied from changing the levels the skills are unlocked, to changes in resource cost, damage, and even function. A few skills were removed altogether, and a few new ones were added. Also, the entire skill system received an overhaul with the Beta Patch 13 update in February 2012, with physical runes replaced by rune effects that automatically unlock at various levels for the different skills.

Magic Weapon remained at level 7 when the beta started. After trying it out, Flux again discussed its viability:[2]

The damage added is fairly minor, certainly compared to just about any spell attack, and this is purely of use for battle mages. (As has been observed on the known Diablo III legendary items, the amount of +%weapon damage found on gear is much lower than it was in Diablo II, and figures like +25-35% are the best to be found on even the Inferno-quality legendary items. Thus on that scale, +20% is a fairly big bonus, akin to something like +200% in Diablo II terms.)

With the Patch 13 changes, Magic Weapon was classified as a Conjuration skill and bumped all the way up to level 20, taking it out of play in the beta.

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.

In Other Games

Magic Weapon is an modified version of Diablo II's Sorceress skill Enchant, but activated like a buff, rather than cast on a target (thus it’s only of use to the Wizard and can not be shared to others).

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:

The bubbling purple effect.

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 Beta Skills Mega-report: Part Two — IncGamers 5th October 2011
Wizard Active Skills — Blizzard's Official Diablo III Site

Fan-made Classes			Fan-made Skills [e]
• Alchemist • Arcane Warrior • Artisan • Aurian Mage • Bard • Channeller • Dragon Warrior	• Flagellant • Giant (U) • Hollow Man • Nomad • Onaga Manji • Phase Knight	• Ranger • Slayer (U) • Techpriest (U) • Telepath • Untainted (U) • Zealot	Dragon Warrior Skills • Bow and Throwing Skill Tree • Dragon Disciplines Skill Tree • Martial Arts Skill Tree	Untainted Skills • Divine Skill Tree • Void Skill Tree • Wrath Skill Tree	Aurian Mage Skill • Holy Power Skill Tree • Shadow Spells Skill Tree • Nature Forces Skill Tree
(U) = Unfinished

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