Blaze

Creates a wall of fire in your wake to scorch your enemies.

Blaze is a Sorceress Fire skill (level 12, requires Inferno) and the prerequisite of Fire Wall. For a few seconds after you cast it, fires spawn behind you wherever you walk, and each fire burns the ground it stands on; in the current game it also makes you run faster. The numbers that decide it are the trail duration, 17.12 seconds at level 20, and the damage per second the fires deal, 435–510 at level 20.

The numbers

Blaze Duration is the time fires keep spawning in your wake. The calc is dm12, a diminishing curve between Param1 (50 frames, the "Buff Duration Min") and Param2 (500 frames, the "Buff Duration Max"): 4.68 seconds at level 1, 11 at level 5, 17.12 at level 20 and 18.36 at level 30. The Basin writes the same curve out as min(50 + 450 × floor(110 × level ÷ (level + 6)) ÷ 100, 500) ÷ 25 and says it approaches 20 seconds at level 60.

Run/Walk Speed is a passive stat the buff carries (passivestat1 velocitypercent, calc ln34): Param3 is the 2% baseline and Param4 adds 2% a level, so +40% at level 20. The Basin marks it as new in D2R.

Fire damage per second comes from bit damage in the EMin/EMax columns, scaled by HitShift 4, which the tooltip multiplies by 25 × 3 ÷ 256: it assumes three fires are burning the target at once. The minimum bit value starts at 4 and grows +3 a level to level 8, +5 to 16, +7 to 22, +9 to 28 and +11 past that; the maximum starts at 8 and grows +3, +6, +8, +10 and +12. The Basin's page shows the LoD-era brackets were lower and lists the D2R ones the table now holds.

How long each fire burns is not in the repo's bank (the tooltip reads the missile's range): the Basin's page gives 89 + 25 × level frames, 4.56 seconds at level 1 and one second more a level, 23.56 at level 20.

Mana is 11 at level 1 and 0.5 more a level (mana 22, lvlmana 1, manashift 7): 20.5 at level 20. All three computed lines read lvl, so +skills count for duration, speed and damage.

How it works

Blaze is a buff on yourself (aurastate "blaze") that drops a static fire missile on each sub-tile you cross. The Basin's page says fires do not spawn while you stand still, only one fire spawns per sub-tile in a single pass, and your movement speed does not change the density of the trail; what faster movement does is let you retrace your steps sooner and stack more fires on the same ground. Each fire applies its bit damage every frame to whatever stands on it, as fire damage reduced by fire resistance, see Dealing Elemental Damage and Resistances and Immunities. No attack rating is involved.

The tooltip's per-second number is a convention: three fires on the target. The Basin's page says the real figure can be much higher as fire duration grows and the caster doubles back to thicken the trail, and that unlike other per-second fire skills Blaze suffers no damage-rate penalty against Magic Damage Reduced. Fires stop a non-immune monster's damage regeneration while it stands in them.

Synergies and +skills

• Warmth: +6% fire damage per level (skills.txt Param8 = 6, calc skill('Warmth'.blvl), hard points only). The Basin's page notes LoD gave 4% a Warmth point plus 1% a Fire Wall point; the current table has only Warmth.
• Blaze feeds nothing.
• Fire Mastery multiplies the fire damage.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player; each fire's tick is such a hit. The Basin's page gives no other rule for Blaze against players.

Build notes

• Duration flattens hard: level 1 to 10 adds 9.56 seconds of trail, level 10 to 20 adds 2.88. Past the midteens, points buy damage and speed, not time.
• The +40% run/walk at level 20 is Faster Run/Walk from a skill, and the line reads +skills.
• With no synergy but Warmth, 20 hard points there is +120% and the only multiplier besides Fire Mastery.