Fire Blast

Throw a fire bomb to blast your enemies to bits.

Fire Blast is the first skill of the Assassin's Traps tree (level 1, no prerequisites) and the root of the whole tree: it unlocks Shock Web and Wake of Fire. It is not a trap but a thrown missile that explodes where it lands and burns everything in a small radius. Two numbers decide it: the fire damage, which is modest on its own but is fed by five other traps at +11% a point each, and the mana, which starts at 3 and never gets expensive.

The numbers

The damage comes from the EMin/EMax columns of skills.txt, halved by the row's HitShift of 7. At level 1 the bomb does 3–4 fire. The minimum then grows by +1.5 a level to level 8, +4 to 16, +10 to 22, +19 to 28 and +29 past that (EMinLev1–5 are 3, 8, 20, 38, 58, each halved); the maximum by +2.5, +5.5, +12, +22 and +33 over the same brackets (EMaxLev1–5 are 5, 11, 24, 44, 66). The tooltip floors the halves, so a level 20 bomb reads 85–113, a level 30 one 277–335. Every level counts, including +skills from items: the damage reads the full skill level.

The blast radius is fixed: Param1 is 5 sub-yards, which the tooltip prints as 3.33 yards at every level, so there is no column for it. Mana is 3 at level 1 and rises by an eighth of a point a level (lvlmana 1 on a mana shift of 5), to 5.38 at level 20 and 6.63 at level 30.

How it works

The bomb is a lobbed missile (skills.txt lob is 1, the server missile is "bomb in air"): the Basin's page says the target must be in line of sight, but the device can be thrown over obstacles and over other units standing between the Assassin and the target. On landing it deals its fire damage to everything inside the radius; there is no attack rating roll, so it cannot miss and is not blocked. It is a cast with the Assassin's own hands, so the Basin says it uses the attack rate, not the cast rate: Attack Speed on your gear is what makes you throw faster, and Faster Cast Rate does nothing for it.

The damage is pure fire, so Fire Skill Damage and Enemy Fire Resistance Reduction on your items apply (the Basin's page says so), and it goes through the target's fire resistance like any other elemental hit; see Dealing Elemental Damage and Resistances and Immunities. There is no weapon damage in it, so nothing that rides on a weapon hit (leech, Crushing Blow, Open Wounds) is carried.

Synergies and +skills

Fire Blast has the widest synergy list in the tree. EDmgSymPerCalc reads the hard points (blvl) in Shock Web, Charged Bolt Sentry, Lightning Sentry, Wake of Fire and Wake of Inferno and multiplies the sum by Param8, which is 11: every hard point in any of the five adds +11% fire damage. +skills from items raise Fire Blast's own level and so its base damage, but add nothing to the synergy. A fully built trapper with 20 in Lightning Sentry alone already has +220%.

In return Fire Blast feeds three traps: it is a damage synergy to Charged Bolt Sentry, Wake of Fire and Wake of Inferno, and its hard points also add bolts to Shock Web and shots to Charged Bolt Sentry and Death Sentry (one per three points). The Basin's page notes that the Shadow Warrior and Shadow Master can throw it too.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before resistances, so the level 20 bomb above lands for about 14–19 fire; see Player versus Player. The Basin's page says nothing else specific about players.

Build notes

• The synergies are where the damage is: a level 20 bomb with no synergies does 85–113, with the five synergy traps at 20 each it does 85–113 × 12 = 1,020–1,356.
• Past level 20 only +skills raise it, and +10 levels add 192 to the minimum (277 at level 30 against 85) — worth more than any single synergy point once the tree is full.
• Mana is never the limit: 5.38 a throw at level 20.
• Hard points in Fire Blast also buy a shot or a bolt for three other traps every three points.