Detonate Dead

its low because it can be boosted a healthy bit.

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soul4hdwn wrote:

its low because it can be boosted a healthy bit.

Unlike every other skill in the game, though, leveling the gem up is pretty much the least effective way to do so.

To re-iterate: this gem DESPERATELY needs a reason to be leveled.

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XCodes wrote:

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soul4hdwn wrote:

its low because it can be boosted a healthy bit.

Unlike every other skill in the game, though, leveling the gem up is pretty much the least effective way to do so.

To re-iterate: this gem DESPERATELY needs a reason to be leveled.

Well leveling the gem, mana cost aside, does increase the dmg. Not by too much, however it is physical, meaning it's affected by 2 major boosts, Hatred and Added Fire Damage(similar to EK builds). Then all of this is further increased by Conc Effect.

Now the base dmg is pretty low but you then add 18% of the mob life you just popped and you get very strong aoe. Cold To Fire could also be added and then getting very high fire dmg via passives+searing touch, maybe with a chance to ignite to pop super strong burns. You don't really need Faster Casting on it if you get a quality gem(60% cast speed with 20% quality is far far more than enough) so that's Detonate - Conc Effect - Added Fire - Cold to Fire(maybe haven't done the math if it's actually worth it) - Chance to Ignite. Fire Pen would be necessary though probably unless you run EE and an arc totem or something, instead of Cold to Fire for example.

The result would be a very very brutal AoE that can create even larger ignite burns with the only downside is you first need to kill mobs. Bear Trap could help greatly with that though(since you run Hatred too). Basically a build similar to EK. Doubt it'd be any better than EK, but it could be pretty strong.

while i don't know how high the physical eventually gets, i rather just focus on the %explosion part, and thus just fire and AoE passives, then res reduction. also that would be a lot of cold giving up lol, 25% added cold and 75% cold to fire would then be 18.75% fire added and 6.25% cold added. a added 40% fire works fine but brings me to a circle questioning how high the physical part gets.

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Vipermagi wrote:

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PyrosEien wrote:

Well leveling the gem, mana cost aside, does increase the dmg. Not by too much, however it is physical, meaning it's affected by 2 major boosts, Hatred and Added Fire Damage(similar to EK builds). Then all of this is further increased by Conc Effect.

The Exile Wiki is up to date on the Physical damage; http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Detonate_Dead

By reserving 30% of your Mana pool, you can increase the damage by some 15 Cold damage on level 64. Insert sarcastic comment about how awesome Conc would make it :P

It is *never* worth it to level Detonate Dead.

Is the part about it not being affected by spell dmg also up to date? I guess in this case yeah meh but I was thinking spell dmg % would increase that value by 200ish % assuming good scepter+passives then convert that to more cold that's also affected by spell dmg% further, leading to a decent amount of dmg to be then amplified by conc effect. I hadn't noticed that part about not scaling though so if it doesn't scale then yeah, no hope for this spell, at least leveling it.

Not that I was planning on lvling it, but I've been trying various iterations of Detonate Dead, the spell totem one is pretty good other than the totem getting killed by mobs all the freaking time which is a fairly common issue with totems when soloing, but for this one I definitely leave it at 1 since it's generally for additional aoe power for a melee type build. It's still not really worth it though and Flame Totem+Blind or Freeze Pulse+Faster Proj totem are both a lot better for a melee and I don't see the point of using Detonate Dead on a caster when you could just cast more spells and kill stuff directly.

Also, Concentrated Effect is a terrible support for this spell. The AoE matters at least as much as the damage. The goal with this gem is to set off a series of explosions that eventually clears the screen, but that becomes a lot harder to do with Concentrated Effect.

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XCodes wrote:

Also, Concentrated Effect is a terrible support for this spell. The AoE matters at least as much as the damage. The goal with this gem is to set off a series of explosions that eventually clears the screen, but that becomes a lot harder to do with Concentrated Effect.

You get enough increased aoe from passives to negate concentrated and get even more, and concentrated is by far the best damage increase you can put on any spell that can use it. The spell doesn't do nearly enough damage to create a chain reaction unless you already have a lot of corpses to play with but concentrated will push it to decent amount. It's basically a 1.7multiplier for your fire damage/elemental damage. Assuming you reach about 200% fire, which should be possible taking some of the weaker 6%, having a good scepter with a fire dmg % roll and an amulet with fire dmg %, that's 340% with Concentrated, pushing the 18% of Detonate Dead from 54%(without Conc effect) to 79.2%.

There's a few things I didn't take into account like Hrimnor's helm which gives like 30% fire iirc and there's a shield that gives elemental dmg % too I believe? Add a few more of the nodes and whatever I might've forgot and with conc effect you'd get a very strong Detonate Dead. Not being able to use spell dmg% still makes it subpar vs just spamming a nuke however, and that's a bit sad I think. If it could be affected by spell dmg%, I could see a pure Detonate Dead build being possible and viable.

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Vipermagi wrote:

I am extremely predictable and would stick with Ignite + Proliferation. Combined with Burning damage, that should work quite nicely.

guess i'll have to give up this build too because i have the "someone else did it so why should i" syndrome. another off-topic, is the weap ele for non detonate dead stuff? or does this passive happen to also use infernal blow.

back on topic: yes burning damage "finishes" things where the raw boosts of supports and passives left off. my planned setup would be flamibility curse, then con effect, ignite chance, fire pen. if i wanted to go further for a 5 slot or 6 slot, then i'd add EE and in AoE. i'd add the AoE at templar and witch, all burning boosts, and maybe searing touch.