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Arcane Missiles
Spell nature starfall
  • Arcane Missiles
  • Level 14 Arcane mage ability
  • 40 yd range
  • Channeled
  • Launches five waves of Arcane Missiles at the enemy over 2 sec, causing a total of (221.5% of spell power) Arcane damage.

    Damage increased by 60% per Arcane Charge.

    Each damaging spell cast has a 15% chance to activate Arcane Missiles. Chance doubled for Arcane Blast. Limit 3 charges.

    Generates 1 Arcane Charge.
Properties
Class Mage
School Arcane
Cooldown None/Global Cooldown
Other information
Level learned 14
Improvements Spell arcane rune [Words of Power]
Related buff
Spell nature starfall
  • Arcane Missiles!
  • Arcane Missiles activated.
  • Duration: 20 seconds
As mage spells go, this one isn't the showiest. Nonetheless, you'll find it quite effective.[1]

Arcane Missiles is a a level 14 channeled Arcane mage spell that shoots a series of missiles at the target dealing direct arcane damage. It has a 15% chance to be triggered by all offensive spells (30% for Spell arcane blast [Arcane Blast]). Its damage is increased by 60% per Arcane Charge.

Notes

While you stand and channel, Arcane Missiles launches bolts of arcane energy at your target, dealing the given damage each second. Unlike other channeled spells, each second (or "tick") is considered a separate direct damage missile which passes through the normal direct damage checks (crit, resistance). Furthermore, both the initial cast of Arcane Missiles and each Missile are considered spell hits, resulting in a maximum amount of 5 hits per cast.

Tips and tactics

A known disadvantage of the spell is that it requires you to stay in one space for the 2 second duration, making you a sitting duck in PvP situations (A sitting duck that happens to be shooting magic missiles at foes, anyways) and keeping you from gaining space between you and your enemies.

An often overlooked PvP benefit is the rapid speed with which it hits opponents causes regular spell interruption. Between this and Spell nature slow [Slow], an Arcane mage can make it exceedingly difficult for an enemy player to get off spells with a cast time.

A notable effect of the fact is that "on spell hit" abilities, such as Inv jewelry necklace 16 [Mark of Defiance], can proc off each missile, similar to "on spell crit" abilities. However, "on spell cast" abilities, such as Inv misc gem diamond 07 [Mystical Skyfire Diamond], only have a chance to proc on each casting of the spell, not on each bolt.

Trivia

  • Arcane Missiles is a basic Mage spell in Hearthstone. The flavor text reads: "You'd think you'd be able to control your missiles a little better since you're a powerful mage and all."

Patches and hotfixes

  • Legion Patch 7.1.0 (2016-10-25):
    • Damage increased by 17%.
    • Now learned at level 12 (was 14).
    Actual damage increase 10%?
  • Legion Hotfix (2016-09-23): Arcane Missiles damage increased by 9%.
  • Legion Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Damage per wave increased by 22.8%, base chance to proc per spell reduced to 15% (down from 40%). Now deals 50% more damage per Arcane Charge (down from 60%).
  • Warlords of Draenor Patch 6.2.0 (2015-06-23): Now deals 10% more damage.
  • Warlords of Draenor Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): Stacks up to 3 charges (up from 2).
  • Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Damage has been reduced by 22.1%.
  • Mists of Pandaria Hotfix (2012-09-20): Arcane Missiles damage has been reduced by approximately 3.5%.
  • Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Now affected by the Arcane Charge resource mechanic.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.1.0 (2011-04-26): Damage has been increased by 13%.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.0.3a (2010-11-23): Damage has been increased by 5%.
  • Cataclysm Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Now has a chance of being castable, much like the effects of Ability mage missilebarrage [Missile Barrage] prior to 4.0.1
  • Wrath-Logo-Small Patch 3.2.2 (2009-09-22):
    • Casting this spell while both Missile Barrage and Clearcasting are active will cause only Missile Barrage to be consumed.
    • Ranks 12 and 13 will now properly cause players to enter combat.
  • Bc icon Patch 2.2.0 (2007-09-25): A bug was fixed where some procs such as the Inv elemental mote life01 [Eye of Magtheridon] would not trigger properly.
  • Bc icon Patch 2.1.0 (2007-05-22):
    • Spell haste now affects channeled spells such as Arcane Missiles, reducing the overall channeling time but still doing the same amount of damage, thus increasing the DPS.
    • A bug was fixed where Arcane Missiles would fire an inconsistent number of missiles. This was fixed so that ranks 3-11 would always fire 5 pulses.
  • WoW Icon update Patch 1.12.0 (2006-08-22): It is no longer possible to cast this spell on an evading mob. In addition, the animation will now stop when the target is dead.
  • WoW Icon update Patch 1.8.0 (2005-10-10): Should now properly report the correct "out of range" indicator on the action bar.
  • WoW Icon update Patch 1.3.0 (2005-03-07): Fixed a bug where the spell would not function properly against spell-reflecting targets.
  • Test-inline Patch 0.9.1 (2004-08-24): Arcane missiles will now only get a chance at the free cast on the first missile instead of every missile
  • Test-inline Patch 0.9 (2004-08-17): Can no longer be cast if silenced.
  • Test-inline Patch 0.7 (2004-06-15): Mana cost and damage increased.

See also

References

External links

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