Corpse Explosion

Cast on the corpse of a slain monster, it explodes, damaging nearby enemies.

Corpse Explosion is a level 6 Necromancer spell (Poison and Bone tree, requires Teeth; it unlocks Poison Explosion and Bone Spear). It consumes a corpse and deals 70–120% of that monster's base life to everything in a radius around it, half as fire and half as physical. The damage is the same at every level; what levels buy is the radius, 2.67 yards at level 1 and 9 at level 20. Mana is 15 at level 1 and 34 at level 20.

The numbers

• Damage is calc1 par1 to calc2 par2: Param1 70 to Param2 120, "Damage % of base HP for enemy Min" and "Max". It does not change with level, so the tooltip's "70–120% of corpse life" line is left out of the table.
• Fire share is calc3 par5, Param5 50: "% Damage Dealt as Elemental", the element being fire (EType "fire"). The other half is physical.
• Radius is Param3 8 half-squares plus Param4 1 a level, which the tooltip divides by 3 for yards: 2.67 yards at level 1, 9 at level 20, 12.33 at level 30. The Basin notes that the tooltip's radius is exact only at odd levels: the physical and fire halves have radii of [(7 + level) ÷ 2] × 2 ÷ 3 and [(8 + level) ÷ 2] × 2 ÷ 3 yards, and at an even level the tooltip shows their average.
• Mana is 15 at level 1 and +1 a level: 34 at level 20.

The radius and the mana read the full skill level, so +skills count. Nothing reads hard points.

How it works

Corpse Explosion is cast on a corpse and does not roll against attack rating. The Basin's rules for the damage:

• It is 70–120% of the normal average base life of a monster of the corpse's level. A Champion's, Unique's or boss's corpse explodes for the same amount as a normal monster of its level, not for its own larger life.
• The damage does not increase with the player count in the game, although the monsters' life does.
• When the monster's level is above yours the damage is multiplied by your level ÷ its level.
• It cannot be blocked, and it is not reduced by the −% damage of Taunt, Battle Cry, Weaken or Decrepify.
• It counts as a fire skill, but +% Fire Skill Damage from items and Fire Mastery do not raise its fire half.

The physical half is read against the target's physical resistance (Dealing Physical Damage) and the fire half against its fire resistance (Dealing Elemental Damage), so a fire immune still takes the physical half and a physical immune the fire half. The Basin says Amplify Damage is normally the curse to cast first: −100% physical resistance doubles the physical half.

In an eight-player game the monsters have far more life but the corpses explode for the single-player figure, so the chain of explosions that clears a screen alone needs more corpses with company.

Synergies and +skills

No synergies: Corpse Explosion has no synergy lines in skilldesc.txt and feeds none. Its only scaling is the radius, and that reads lvl, so a +1 from items is worth one hard point: a third of a yard. No mastery and no +% skill damage raises the explosion.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else; the explosion's physical and fire halves are each read against the player's resistances after that. The Basin's page records no other player-versus-player rule for this skill. See Player versus Player.

Build notes

• The damage never changes; a level 1 explosion hits as hard as a level 20 one over a circle a third the width. Points buy radius only, 2.67 yards to 9 at level 20, with the mana rising from 15 to 34.
• +skills from items grow the radius exactly as hard points do, so a Necromancer with +10 skills needs ten fewer points here for the same circle.
• The first corpse is the hard one: the explosion is strongest against packs, with Amplify Damage on them, in small games.