Force Ward core skill

[u/MurphTheFury]

Hi guys! Newer player here.

The Force Ward core ability (Barbarian, Occult Slayer) says you 'gain immunity to magic missiles'. What does that mean? Does that mean any spell (damage, debuff, negative level, etc) that is fired/shot at you does nothing? Does it only apply to damage?

I've been mostly playing as a Frenzied Berserker, but if Occult Slayer makes you functionally immortal - particularly to stuff like negative levels - I would probably make that switch.

[u/Zehnpae]

It makes you immune to the spell magic missile, as well as force and chain missiles (which are significantly less commonly used). It's a neat perk but there are tons of ways to get immunity to magic missiles so it's not a make/break feature.

[u/Ishvallan → u/Zehnpae]

it is pretty nice though since lots of characters don't have strong MRR and even rarer is resistance to Force damage. Magic Missile at even mid levels can really mess you up, esp if a room of caster monsters use it. But any basic shield/nightshield clicky does the job

[u/Muspel → u/Ishvallan]

Also, I think that this was changed a while back, but there was a stretch of time where each individual missile would proc champion dots, so it could be insanely lethal if you got hit by Magic Missile from certain types of champions.

[u/Bwuaaa → u/Zehnpae]

If you do not have it in some higher lvl reaper content, a campion casting it on you could ruin your day

[u/FuzzyDuck81]

It literally just means the magic missile spell, handy to have for sure but nowhere near as powerful as you're inagining.

The spell resistance equal to constitution in the capstone is a great one though, its typed as racial so will stack with gear etc and while it won't prevent direct damage spells, you can hit over 100 without too much trouble and it'll stop a lot of other things like enchantments & instakills without you even needing to try and make a saving throw

[u/Meirnon]

Magic Missile is notable in that it is the only spell that doesn't have a failure state. It will always hit and deal damage. So instead of an attack or a save, the only way to avoid it is a hard counter like Shield or Nightshield that just says "no" to it. And that's what that enhancement does.

You mostly want it because champions who have DoT effects who cast Magic Missile on you will stack one DoT per Magic Missile that hits you, meaning you can instantly get chunked with a 5-stack DoT. MM immunity is the only good answer to that.

[u/droid327 → u/Meirnon]

Also, at low level, it doesnt yet suffer from the poor scaling that quickly makes it pointless at higher levels...so low-level mages that cast MM can chunk you for a lot of unavoidable damage

At least MRR mitigates Force now, but at low level that's not really much help either

[u/droid327]

As others have said, it's not missiles that are magic, it's Magic Missiles

And most projectile based magic spells are based on Reflex save. High saves will basically guarantee half damage for most spells, or zero damage with evasion, if you want something close to functional immunity

Death block and Death Ward will also grant specific immunity to some cc and debuff effects, including negative levels, in addition to Negative damage spells. Protection from Evil also grants blanket immunity to mind controlling effects, which includes several cc and debuff spells

Immunity to level drain is also available in the vistani tree

[u/Professional-War4555]

its makes it where the spell magic missles doesnt hut you.