Detonate Dead

Well he has a lot of melee passives too so yeah definitely infernal blow, however that's a questionnable choice, mobs that explode from explosive blow cannot be detonated since they don't leave a corpse. So you can't use Infernal Blow to get the detonate dead totem rolling(or yourself whichever). Same for Glacial Hammer since it breaks corpses. Basically your best bet I guess is to use Ground Slam or something with Anger aura and as much +fire dmg you can get, or Burning Arrow would work fine.

When I used Detonate Dead totem the last time it was on a block heavy melee(like 55% or something)with fire traps+detonate+tempest shield for damage and double strike to kill stuff to get rolling. It worked really well, as long as the totem would stay up. It would sometimes take me 4 or 5 totems to kill a single group cause the totem would keep pulling aggro near instantly and get killed by projectiles/leapers/whatever, it only really worked well when I could body block mobs in a door or bridge and have the totem detonating corpses from the other side.

So detonate dead totem, not so good, you kinda have to cast the spell yourself or have another totem to distract mobs but then it's dual totem. Bear trap+Fire trap+mine/trap with a nuke and dual totem with like decoy+full detonate totem would work ok though I guess, decoy has good synergy with conc effect stuff since mobs tend to group on the decoy.

well the thing about infernal blow, is that the explosion is a different intensity detonate dead (25% or 20% vs 18%). so that's fine as they can be interchanged in use, although melee'ing is kinda far different in comfort...

totem'ing would be a large penalty to damage. if someone wanted to use detonate for the corpse removal, they wouldn't add supports (or at least just AoE so the 18%*0.7 damage becomes icing on cake). although on same point, devouring totem would do just the same, granted caster isn't at max hp.

The radius is pretty awful on it. In my opinion, you have to go ele proliferation if you don't want to hate life. I also don't recommend using conc effect for the same reason, but you kind of need to until you get higher level and gear.

I used it with AoE, EP, CTI, pen (optional). Then you use searing touch and windscream to doubledip negative resist on the very high, ~45 radius burn. Best way to kill your first target is with explosive arrow, CE, pen, CTI on a switch quill rain. With top end gear and high level I was doing about 60% corpse life per second burn against 0% resist mobs and 216% corpse life per second against -90% resist mobs. Curse immune stuff should be killed with EA instead.

Edit: also, decoy totem is your friend.

Does detonate dead work with Ancestral Bond (Dual Totem)? I thought not, but then I saw this video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AzIPXQ_3To where DD is assigned to "W" key and not supported by spell totem

I really don't get the latest change to DD. As it stands, leveling it tends to be a drawback, because the mana costs ramps up for very little effect (a small added phy damage)

Ok, having a lower mana cost at level 1 will make a supported DD fire nuke cheaper, which is nice in itself, but this means that the mana ramp up will be even steeper so there's even LESS reason to ever level it up !

What is the idea behind that ? Stress the fact that this gem isn't meant to ever be leveled ??

Does remote mine work with this for another +50% dmg?

yes if you place the mine close enough to a corpse for the mine to be able to cast.

I asked Mark_GGG about a lot of things regarding this skill (as well as a bit about Remote Mine) that were unclear to me...here's the Q&A that went on there:

Spell damage modifiers affect the flat damage from Detonate Dead, correct?

Despite being listed as a spell, spell damage modifiers don't affect it. I would assume, however, that spell modifiers such as "critical strike chance for spells" would affect it, much like Bear Trap.


Which of these is true (HP values listed as hypotheticals)?

This question was important for determining approximately how much of an enemy's health you'll do with DD (and IB/other %Health things introduced in the future).

Other info:

"

Mines inherently target monsters. Detonate Dead targets corpses. Detonate Dead mines will target a monster (it it's trigger radius), then shift target to a corpse close to that monster if they can. The corpse must be within 20 of the monster, but need not be within the trigger radius.

In regards to casting the Detonate Dead Mines

"

There is no game-time delay, under normal circumstances. Each is still processed separately, so they happen sequentially, but will do so within the same frame - there are 0 seconds of delay, but the game is only doing one thing at a time.

...

You cast the skill, some time passes while you play the cast animation, and then at a specific point in that animation, the spell 'goes off'. Mines cast skills just like you following the same process.

...

You detonate the mines. There's only once corpse, assuming they are able to target it (a monster in their trigger radius is close to the corpse), each mine begins to cast detonate dead, targeting the corpse. They all do this simultaniously in terms of in-game time. Some time later, they reach the point in their cast animation that the spell takes effect. Whichever has the lower arbitrary ObjectId (almost certainly the mine which was placed first) will have it's actions for this frame processed first. It will delete the corpse, distribute damage, and play an effect. Each of the others, when their turn in ObjectId order comes up, will reach the same point, see the corpse they targeted is deleted, and fail to cast the spell because the target no longer exists. [An 18%] life Zombie will die [creating a new corpse], but the mines all started their action casting a different corpse some time ago back, and its corpse didn't exist when the mines were detonated, sot hey couldn't have targeted it.

I also asked if he could confirm whether or not "Fire Penetration" affects secondary damage (Minion Instability explosions, Explosive Arrow, Detonate Dead, etc.) - these things are affected by Fire Penetration. Burns, however, are not. I'm about to make (more detailed) note of these things in the Fire Penetration thread.

Remote Mine thread contains a bit more information similar to the above.


EDIT: I'm surprised there's not one mention of Culling Strike in this thread...it goes up to 22% increased damage (affects the explosion) -and- essentially means you only need to do 90% of mob HP to kill them. I've got a potential (non-crit) build layout that can rack up somewhere around 140% of original mob HP before fire pen + dual curse kicks in - could get a little expensive for gems/gear though; gonna need Kaom's if I want more than 3.5k HP. Crits/burns are a non-factor for the build. It has ~80% final increased AoE (doesn't use Conc Effect). Unless something changes/I get a new idea, I'll be building this thing once I roll my Kaom's Heart ... Mark my words, I will roll one.