Arcane Damage

• Looking for the Arcane Enchanted Elite Affix?

Arcane weapon and crit graphic.

Arcane is one of the types of damage in Diablo III. It is purple in appearance, and the corpses of monsters that die from Arcane damage glow with a purple light.

Arcane damage is chiefly dealt by Wizard skills including Magic Missile, Arcane Orb, Disintegrate, Arcane Torrent, and Energy Twister. It can also be found on all types of weapons.

Arcane Enchanted is considered one of the most dangerous of all Elite Affixes.

During development Critical hits scored with Arcane damage would "silence" enemy targets, preventing mages from casting some spells. This effect was removed along with all other elemental debuffs except for cold during later testing.

Diablo III Damage Types

Arcane corpses glow purple.

In the final game no damage type other than cold has any secondary damage properties. This was not the case during development, as these tweets by @Diablo from December 2010 make clear.[1]

any change in the range of damage types to include holy, shadow, voodoo or anything else to match the classes? —Scyberdragon

Damage types will likely change some but are currently Physica], Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison, Disease, Arcane, and Holy. —Diablo

Whats the difference between poison and disease damage?—WickedBubba
Disease has a damage debuff (both intake and output), and poison has a health debuff (regen/heal). Subject to change of course.—Diablo

Is there much difference between poison and disease? They’re both internal maladies that hurt over a period of time.—Grug

Fairly significant in their difference, but both countered with a single resistance. Damage/resists aren’t design complete though.—Diablo