Detonate Dead

^ thanks for ventiman for explaining this build for me in game. Without his passives and just the 5l with the same skill gem combination does considerable damage.

This skill gem desperately needs a reason to be leveled. Even if it's just a small radius increase like 1% or 2% per level, or maybe 0.2% corpse life -> damage per level. Maybe even just a meaningful physical damage boost. The nature of the skill makes these small increases by level well worth the increased mana cost.

My idea to improve this skill:

Make base cast speed much slower, make levels increase cast speed. Maximum cast speed should be quite a bit higher than current base. Quality then can increase AoE radius by small amount (0,75% per point?) instead of cast speed.

Whether someone levels this gem and how much should be a reasonable choice. Right now it is either: 'I have infinite mana anyway and can do slightly more damage' or 'I won't level at all and still do shitload of damage for absolutely no cost'.

With slow cast speed this skill would still be viable for just clearing corpses and still do decent damage with %. Leveling it a bit would be smart choice but increase the cost.

@globbi:
you want to reduce the castspeed even more? This already is one of the slowest spells and it will make this spell even more useless in lower levels...
I dont think that dmg is a huge problem in lategame when you've put a lot of efford into dmg- and aoe stats. My concern is the defence:

I dont think that this spell works well with (kiting) ranged builds. You have to pull mobs together and tank them somehow, but if you invest in aoe-radius, dmg- and crit stats I dont see any chance building a proper defence for an shortrange/melee build.
Dont know how the nerfed decoy totem works in lategame, but atm every normal monster with more than average dmg almost kills my totem in 1 shot, so...

Actually, there aren't too many elemental/spell damage nodes that you can pick up, even up on the Witch's side of the tree. If you just invest in Fire damage, then you will still have quite a few passive points leftover for defenses.

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XCodes wrote:

Actually, there aren't too many elemental/spell damage nodes that you can pick up, even up on the Witch's side of the tree. If you just invest in Fire damage, then you will still have quite a few passive points leftover for defenses.

What? plz show me a skilltree with enough fire dmg, burning, aoe radius, aoe dmg, cast speed, enough mana and some crit for the burning with enough defence for a more or less tanky build...
I could easily spent all of my skillpoints only in mana and dmg nodes if it would be possible to survive (but this doesnt even work in normal^^)

And what kind of defence? ES+Shield? Life+Shield? Life/regen only? ES+lifeRegen(zealoth oath) only? Decoy totem (would be the best for 'detonate dead' imho - but after that nerf? I dont think you can rely on that spell anymore) Max.Endurance charges?

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Vipermagi wrote:

I'd probably roll with this. *shrug*
(screw Crits; Chance to Ignite's pretty swish)

Flammability for Fire Resistant monsters, Temp Chains for the rest (the slow movement keeps monsters in a ball, which is what you need for DD).

Well doesnt look so bad, but you will need high ES/life gear and it looks like an kiting-build.
Monsters immune to curses (temp chains) could be very hard without regeneration/leech...
And I think you will have problems with DoT chaos dmg and flicker strike mobs...

I also think that you wont do much dmg with DD only using "increased" dmg modifiers. Imho you will need crit. Not because of the burning, because of crit dmg modifier multiplies the incresed modifiers and you already have a lot of 'increased' modifiers on your wand and shield.

Alright time for some math,
18% of a mobs hp

so right there is up to 40% fire damage if you get a good roll, and it has 70% increased burning damage and since burning damage does 4/3 of a spells damage 18x1.5=27% 4/3x1.7= rounded down 2.25 damage this is without any other fire damage or burning damage amplifiers so right there it does 60% of a mobs hp if it triggers burning.


So how can we trigger burning all the time? well we have 20% Quality flamability which if you put it in that staff is 15% chance to burn, and it gives .8 seconds of burn duration or a 20% increases in burning damage, add in the chance to ignite support again with 20% quality is a 44% further chance to burn so thats now 59% chance to burn and it gives another 20% increase to burn duration so now you have 5.6 seconds of burn time and you have not even used passives to increase your damage.


Now throw in elemental Proliferation support gem 20 quality and you have burning that spreads a huge aoe and you guessed it another 15% burning duration increase so now you have 6.2 seconds of burning
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUABVuLjOFz7SBG113G3fO1BGBt5CIpTxps7DiCm52uGYWmrDrYGjinCBJpJKqIQE3Yp4QVUNgkj0bZCxccNumQM548jHaQVTbF0NAqmHF542qBb8AaHwKboc9l-oAEs1nznC3310jnVcYUTfAfAnGsqodlrJhbWRZvogAn7a-3FLCftPPdGS5JGzowWK7ZYdSPLJw5UlcNud1Jsrw30iHyL-8OAuNObZ7N51IHpWvbWAenMFRJFCAUcV8_UEcGDvZIA8Zj_YzP_QslrVBQCfZYY8bY

Now with a properish spec 41% elemental damage and another 30% burn duration 7.4 seconds 60% burning damage 72% fire damage and can curse with 2 curses so now we can lower fire resists by a whopping 105%
now i am going to do this calculation without elemental damage cause i am not sure if that 41% elemental damage applies to detonate dead or not

But as it stands here are the facts with this staff and a little creative planning, 7.4 second burn, which burns 130% harder(normal is 33% of the damage inflicted per second for 4 seconds) so that is 75.9% of the inital fire damge per second for 7.4 seconds not bad at all right, but it gets better 561.66% of the inital hit over 7.4 seconds 59% of the time and it spreads to all nearby enemies.

so lets calculate the inital hit shall we, for sake of math, we will assume the monsters have 50% fire resist a fair assumption I would think and again for the sake of math lets say the mob has an easy 1000 hp, so a normal detonate dead would do 180 damage before modifiers and fire resist, so lets say that the mob has both curses so it now has -55% fire resist so the inital hit is going to do 55% more damage.

So 122% increased fire damage from the staff and spec alone(yes i know you can get more from amulets and stuff this is just to show the potential)
so 180x2.22=399.6 and 59% of the time it will trigger an ignite without a crit and it will crit for its usual 4.5% of the time but for just for easy math lets forget about crits.

so if it takes 2 casts to get an ignite(which is fair) the first hit will do 399.6 x1.55 619.38 damage aoe, the second hit does 619.38 aoe(which kills all the mobs but for grins lets assume the pack had an elite in it with 10k hp instead of 1k)
this hit triggers the burning so 619.38x5.6166=3478.809708 add the two explosions from before to trigger this burning and you have 4717.569708 damage done in 2 casts with a 7.4 second dot(while you run away) so there you have it you can do upwards of 26 times normal damage with this "bad looking skill" in an aoe and shred through almost half of a mob with 10 times the hp of the mob you explode, now you say you don't like death to reflect why not just throw it into a spell totem and watch it wreck havoc for you? I personally am leveling a templar(on Hard core) right now to try this out along with some other fiery shinanigans. Comments and critiques welcome as this is all done with information off the wiki so some of it is guesswork(on the level of curses assuming they scale the same beyond what the wiki shows)

so for those people who think you can't build around this and have survivability this has 191% increased max life 35%(50% fire) all resists and you have some spare points for more depending on your gear, and if you get to a high enough level you can throw some more points into life or into the witch side fire branch which i opted to not include as the level requirement is probably higher then most people will play a spec into

edit I even forgot the fire pen support for even more Fire resist shredding powers! which at 20 quality is 10% more fire damage and over 30 resistance penatration
Edit edit i factored in the 20 quality, but to lazy to factor in another -resist when i don't even know how high it scales on the gem(wiki incomplete)

its possible to do math via leaving detonate dead's fire AoE without assuming corpse's hp. either call it .18 or make everything but final number as a percent. without quality gems, its still devastating via burning. this is also WITH attention and focus placed on the skill, so its justified. don't forget concentrated effect, its AoE still after all.

also as far fire penetration, only the hit itself will get the res reduction. burning won't get benefit from it. complicates things for other skills but most would already use double curse for maximizing burning.

note that i do my math via lv 15 gems, not lv 20 gems and specially don't rely on quality (although it makes a lot of difference clearly).