Explosive Blast

Explosive Blast is a Wizard Tier 2 skill unlocked at level 3, blasting a small area for high damage.

Background

Diablo III Active Skill [e]
Explosive Blast
Used by:	Wizard
Enabled at:	Clvl 3
Skill Description
A blast of energy explodes at the target causing 10-16 damage in a small radius.
Type:	Direct Damage/AoE
Resource Use:	Costs Arcane Power
Skill Rune Effects
Alabaster rune:	Unknown
Crimson rune:	Unknown
Golden rune:	Unknown
Indigo rune:	Unknown
Obsidian rune:	Unknown

The Wizard conjures volatile gasses into the physical realm, which ignite with oxygen and create a powerful blast in a very limited space.

Skill Design

This skill is basically a short-range nova centered around the Wizard, on a short time delay. Since the Wizard can move after activating it, she can select it, run into the midst of a pack of monsters, then laugh when they go boom.

The spell's delay (about 1.5 seconds) makes it unsuitable for emergency use, and its short range (at least at level 1) makes it difficult to use without getting pounded on. Skill runes will undoubtably make it more viable, and less a novelty skill.

Skill Rank Table

• Rank 1: After building up for 1.5 seconds, an arcane explosion deals 10-16 damage to all nearby monsters.

Trait Synergies

Explosive Blast benefits directly from the following Wizard traits:

• Glass Cannon: Increases damage done by spells and increases armor.
• Intimidation: Increases damage done and reduces vendor costs.
• Quickening: Increases spell casting speed.
• Beast Hunter: Damage bonus against beasts.
• Demonsbane: Damage bonus against Demons.
• Just...Stay...Dead!: Damage bonus against undead.
• Power Surge: Increase critical strike damage.
• Penetrating Spells: Reduces the resistances of your target to your spells by 20%.

Note: The current trait list is very out-of-date and will no doubt be overhauled before game release.

Skill Rune Effects

• Unknown rune: Turns the single blast into three consecutive blasts.
• Unknown rune: The blast hits at the point of activation, making it work more like a trap. The explosion also seems to set off other nearby Blasts.

Development

Explosive Blast was first seen at BlizzCon 2009 in the gameplay demo, where it was on the Conjuring Skill Tree at Tier III.

It was one of the Wizard's starting skills at BlizzCon 2010, located at Tier 2 after skill trees were removed. Flux found it entertaining:[1]

It’s basically a short-range nova, on a time delay. You click it, and after 1.5 seconds (at level one) it blew up, dealing fairly substantial physical damage. The time delay made it unsuitable for emergency situations, but if you got used to the timing it was fun to click midway through a battle, knowing it would blast a moment later and finish off the enemy.

Previous Versions

See the Wizard skill archive for more details on previous versions of Explosive Blast and other Wizard skills.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Explosive Blast specific gallery contents

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• BlizzCon 2010 Wizard Hands-on Report