Quirks/features of Exploding Arrow (bows)

[Crystalion]

Because I've been playing around with the beta and also studying rushing I've bumped into one of my old favorite topics, Exploding Arrow, a few times, and some of what I've heard/tested may be of interest...

In past versions I really liked the unique Raven Claw and Kuko Shakaku because (you could give them to Rogue hirelings and) they converted (no mana cost) regular arrow shot into Exploding Arrows that had blast auto-hit with transmission of effects. This was so good that in some cases it was silly (e.g. Rattlecage + Howltusk).

When the patch beta came out I was disappointed to learn that (most/all?) blast radius skills have removed effect transmission, although the wisdom of such a change is clear to me (--"oh well, was fun while it lasted").

Someone here (FA zon, e.g.) can probably confirm whether "on striking" and "when stuck" procs activate solely by the blast (FA, EA, Dragon Tail,...) as I haven't gotten around to testing that myself.

But I have confirmed that +fire damage adders are carried into EA's blast. This means, if your arrow hits your target (the blast will always trigger and hit, even if your arrow misses or is blocked), that your +fire damage adders work at twice effectiveness (the hit and the blast).

That's pretty nice.

"But wait, there's more!..."

The various bows in the game actually bump you up a bit in the skill level they use as well...
(this is not affected by +skill or your native skill, if you're a zon)

(fire damage of EA for level shown in parentheses...)
Raven Claw: level 3 EA (12-16)
Kuko Shakaku: level 7 (32-36) plus (40-180) (you see why this is a fav for Rogue Mercs)
Hellcast: level 5 (22-26) plus (15-35)
Demon Machine: level 6 (27-31)
Blood Raven's Charge: level 13 (72-81)

I didn't list the stats of those bows or the +AR% for the level of the EA but you can easily look those up.
(and you need to, as the "lying character screen" ™ won't clue you in on any of this for the "normal" attack you'll be doing that is converted into EA)

"But wait, there's more!..."

As tested v1.10s LAN pvp, your Fire Arrow skill points do indeed synergize the EA granted from the Bow (+12% of base EA damage per base skill in FA). So a zon with maxed Fire Arrow will get +240% of 32-36 from a Kuko.

I am guessing, but have not tested, that a Fire Arrow Rogue will therefore get additional damage from Synergy to using Raven Claw or Kuko Shakaku but, if my tests with my Shadow Warrior getting synergy to Death Sentry from *my* Fire Blast (+shots/3) is an indication, this could be totally up in the air.

"But wait, there's more!..."

Under v1.10 you can upgrade uniques. So you could elite a Kuko (or even a Raven Claw, haha) to get decent base phys damage.

"But wait, there's more!..."

I was considering saving this until I finally publish all my tidbits from my study of Rushing, but it is appropriate to mention here that v1.10 Enchant is an uber skill. To wit, it is very very worthwhile to make a Sorc build whose primary purpose is blessing others with max synergy L20 Warmth to maxed Enchant with maxed Fire Mastery. Such a character can bless you (with common +skills equip) for thirteen minutes, with a huge bonus to AR and ~1000 fire damage. The blessee has *no* level/str/etc. requirement to receive this blessing. And it is +fire, as discussed above, so it adds in to both the arrows *and* splash of the Exploding Arrow.

If you are drooling already, I should perhaps mention that Raven Claw has a clvl req of 15. If you get your rogue hireling to level 15, give them a Raven Claw, and get blessed, your only remaining problem is acquiring monsters (fast enough) for her to blow away.

(Naturally one of the focuses of my rushing research includes xp rushing *other* than by enchant, since a enchant-bless-drone Sorc is a rather unbalanced build and you need 62 skill points to complete the build, possible at level 51 at the earliest).

Since money is "free" (relatively speaking) another possibility if you haven't dropped an EA unique bow is to pay for charges (annoyingly only 30 charges, so, even with weapon switch, frequently $pendy town recharge trips--and clvl req of 26, afaik...charges of Multishot might be more practical for this concept).

Of course, the enchant by itself, added to whatever attack type you prefer, as long as it carries it (I'm afraid the auto-hit skills: Smite and zon Lightning Bolt do not; but Guided Arrow does!) is killer, relatively speaking. Even in hell difficulty where the v1.10 monsters have tons of HPs this is a significant aid (except, duh, vs. fire immunes that haven't been broken). EA (and Immolation arrow, except for the recast timer foo) is just an especially good choice because the enchant carries into the auto-hit splash (haven't tested 2 charge of fire fist or Dragon Tail in this regard, sorry).

Lots of fun. Not quite as much fun (pre-v1.10) as tranmitting effects, but certainly enough to consider Exploding Arrow to be (in combination with +fire Enchant) not just the unused little sister of Freezing Arrow.

[Raziel]

As tested v1.10s LAN pvp, your Fire Arrow skill points do indeed synergize the EA granted from the Bow (+12% of base EA damage per base skill in FA). So a zon with maxed Fire Arrow will get +240% of 32-36 from a Kuko.

I am guessing, but have not tested, that a Fire Arrow Rogue will therefore get additional damage from Synergy to using Raven Claw or Kuko Shakaku

Considering that Fire Arrow rogues get sickeningly a high skill level in Fire Arrow, the potential for synergy is quite.. fun :)

Here's the key question though.

Let's assume you have a Rogue Merc wielding a Kuko Shakaku. This means your Rogue is at least clvl 33, which according to Diabloii.net means she has level 8 Fire Arrow skill, which according to AS adds 12x8 => 96%ed to explosive arrows.

Assuming you Enchant your Fire Arrow rogue merc with slvl 20 Enchant (and slvl 20 Warmth and slvl 20 Fire Mastery)..

Knowing that this Enchant +fire damage bonus passes to the slvl 7 explosive Kuko arrows fired by the Rogue..

Will the FULL damage - including the Enchant adder - of the explosive damage be enhanced by 96%, or simply the slvl 7 Kuko explosive damage?

[Quillan]

Some crafty thoughts there. A skilled enchantress on the 2nd cpu has always been a help :), but now more so with FM working.

Your post got me to thinking about act 3 mercs, so i did some research and have determined that an act 3 fire merc can get lvl 42 fireball (hexfire, visc. shield, trang helm/armor). The problem is how often the AI uses inferno, and that without synergies the damage isn't high enough (approx 500-600 ave), so i'm leaning towards your suggestion of a fire rogue merc. If you instead used a cold rogue, would her freezing effect work through the explosion cloud? Although you'd lose damage, the freeze could be helpful.

I also noted the synergy between bash and stun on the act V merc, which would give the merc fairly decent +ED%. And both the non fire act 3 mercs have synergistic skills

I couldn't find any information on merc. skill level in 1.1s, so please enlighten me with a link if you have more info!

Thanks
Quillan

[Crystalion]

so i'm leaning towards your suggestion of a fire rogue merc.  If you instead used a cold rogue, would her freezing effect work through the explosion cloud? 

I couldn't find any information on merc. skill level in 1.1s, so please enlighten me with a link if you have more info!

When the Rogue hireling, using a Kuko, decides to fire a *regular* arrow, she gets an explosive arrow instead. When she decides to use her power of FA she gets an FA (albeit one with additional +fire from the Kuko). Ditto on the CA Rogue. So no, the CA chilling effect is not transmitted at all when a regular arrow (converted to EA) is fired.

The information on percentages of attack use by mercs was posted either here or on the AB recently--perhaps someone who remembers will link to it (as I didn't find it just now). However Spirea's pages have hireling info (some of which is out of date for v1.10 of course) and are linked from the main LL D2 page.

Raziel wrote:

Will the FULL damage - including the Enchant adder - of the explosive damage be enhanced by 96%, or simply the slvl 7 Kuko explosive damage?

and the answer from v1.10s pvp testing was no--the numbers I saw are consistant with the EA from Kuko damage being enhanced, not also the enchant adder (or, for that matter, the +fire damage from the Kuko).

I did notice that some of the new high level uniques in v1.10 have +% fire damage as an attribute, but those are hard to find and have a high clvl req.

On a more practical note, since an Enchantress blesser is "just add salt", it would typically be a huge win to sacrifice weapon/attack damage for max effective ias (i.e. fastest/mostest/surest attack methods, to carry lots of the fire enchantment damage). Getting the minimum times for the Multishot, Strafe, Jab, Fend, Fury, Zeal, WW, Dragon Talon (and possibly Fire Fist and Dragon Tail, if enchant carries into them) directly multiplies the Enchant fire damage output. (afaik you can't speed up Blade Fury or Blade Sentry, and Blade Shield v1.10s is bugged 3/128 instead of 32/128 damage).

Naturally *hitting* the monsters is helpful also (ITD, -DR%, auto-hit, +AR etc.) to up the effectiveness. These are things people try to do anyway. The key thought would be--if you have a Blessing Enchantress to bestow you with hefty +fire damage--to prioritize making that effective when you can get more mileage out of it than alternatives (which is almost certainly true until your character is high level with high level gear).

[Crystalion]

Raziel wrote:
and the answer from v1.10s pvp testing was no--the numbers I saw are consistant with the EA from Kuko damage being enhanced, not also the enchant adder (or, for that matter, the +fire damage from the Kuko).

and I replied

I did notice that some of the new high level uniques in v1.10 have +% fire damage as an attribute, but those are hard to find and have a high clvl req.

My recollection was that some players were building Sorcs with Lightning or Fire Mastery pre-v1.10 to enhance their melee/ranged +lightning and +fire adders (I seem to recall verifying this myself at some point also). So I got to wondering whether the new enchant includes casting Sorc's Fire Mastery would doubly benefit a target Sorc who also had Fire Mastery...

Nope, no "double" benefit. Fire Mastery is, for example (according to my empirical tests), enhancing the base fire damage of the skill exploding arrow (granted by item) but *not* any adders (including the other Sorc Enchanting you).

This is a bummer for +fire Melee Sorcs as they lose FM benefit on +fire from Items (they still get their own FM benefit now on enchanting themselves).

So I had to go test Lightning Mastery. In my test I used a -act 5 level 33 Sorc to barehand another character 10 times. I had equiped Tancred's Amulet and boots, giving +15 lightning damage. The damage delivered was as expected. I then put four points into Lightning Mastery and the damage went up (by % you'd expect).

So +lightning items for Melee Sorcs look like they will still benefit from LM as before.

I am wondering if the new v1.10 uber items that add +% fireghtning function in the same way as the Masteries? If so, then we are likely to see a difference in the effectiveness of the two (i.e. using adders, +% L will be more effective than +% F).

[Crystalion]

"But wait, there's more!..."

I forgot to mention that Exploding Arrow splash can affect beyond the barrier it splashed against.

For example, if there are monsters crowding the other side of a (solid/closed) door in Tal Rasha's tombs, you can shoot an EA which collides with the door harmlessly, but the splash may reach far enough to harm monsters on the other side.

I seem to recall this being mentioned as a technique for Freezing Arrow in posts at the AB. (of course the incredible adder to FA is the chill *duration* from your adders adding to the freeze time--kinda defeats the "purpose" of having a freeze time synergy).