Fists of Fire

Charge-up skill: consecutive hits add fire damage to finishing moves; can only be used with claw-class weapons; must use a dragon finishing move or normal attack to release charges.

Fists of Fire is the Martial Arts fire charge-up (level 6, no prerequisites; it unlocks Claws of Thunder). It needs a claw-class weapon (itypea1 "h2h") or bare hands. Each hit that lands stores a charge, up to three, and the next finishing move releases them: fire damage on the target with one, an explosion with two, a burning pyre on the ground with three. Two numbers decide it: the fire damage of the charges, 201–221 at level 20, and the share of the finisher's physical damage converted to fire, 3% a level.

The numbers

• Mana is a flat 2 at every level, so it is left out of the table.
• Fire damage (charges one and two) is EMin/EMax with a HitShift of 8, read as written: 6–10 at level 1, then +5 a level on both ends to level 8, +10/+11 to 16, +20/+22 to 22, +30/+33 to 28 and +40/+44 past that (EMinLev1–5 and EMaxLev1–5): 201–221 at level 20, 501–551 at level 30. The Basin's D2R table matches.
• Charge 2 radius is Param1 (4), which the Basin prints as 2 2/3 yards, the same at every level; the pyre of charge 3 is laid within Param2 (4), the same radius.
• Charge 3 fire per second is the tooltip's missile line (m1eo and m1ey), which the repo's bank cannot compute. The Basin's D2R table prints the displayed value, 289–301 fire a second at level 20 (9–15 at level 1, 1,107–1,179 at level 40), and explains it assumes two of the pyre's missiles hit the target.
• Physical converted to fire is calc1 lvl*3: 3% a level, 60% at level 20, and the Basin says 100% from level 34 on.
• Attack rating on the charge-up swing is ToHit (25%) plus LevToHit (10%) a level, +215% at level 20. On the finisher each charge adds +50% attack rating (Param4), +150% with three.
• Charge duration is Param3, 375 frames = 15 seconds.

The damage, conversion and attack-rating lines read lvl, so +skills count; the synergy reads blvl.

How it works

Fists of Fire is a melee attack using the weapon's full damage (SrcDam 128) that must pass a Chance to Hit roll; with two claws the Basin says both are used. Each hit that lands adds a charge to the progressive_fire state, up to three (prgstack 1); further hits only reset the 15-second clock. Nothing happens until a finisher releases the charges: a normal melee attack, Dragon Talon, Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail or Dragon Flight, and with Dragon Talon or Dragon Claw only the first hit that lands carries them (Basin).

What is released, by the Basin's page: with one to three charges the fire damage above is dealt to the target; with two or three the same fire damage is dealt in the 2 2/3-yard radius as an explosion; with three a pyre of static missiles is laid in the radius, each applying its fire bit rate every frame for 63 frames, with the per-second figure above assuming two missiles overlap the target (their count and placement vary). At the same time the finisher's physical damage is converted to fire by calc1's share: the conversion is applied after +% damage and Deadly or Critical Strike and before resistance, so physical damage resist does not reduce it but Fire Resist does (see Dealing Elemental Damage).

The three parts scale differently: Fire Skill Damage raises only the fire damage of charges one and two, not the pyre and not the converted damage; the Phoenix Strike synergy raises the charge fire and the pyre, not the converted damage (Basin).

Charges from Tiger Strike, Cobra Strike, Claws of Thunder, Blades of Ice and Phoenix Strike can be held at the same time and are all released by one finisher while their durations last (Basin).

Synergies and +skills

EDmgSymPerCalc reads the hard points in Phoenix Strike times Param8: +12% fire damage per hard point in [[phoenix-strike]] (the dsc3 line), applied to the charges' fire and the pyre, not to the converted physical. In return Fists of Fire's hard points are the fire synergy of Phoenix Strike's first charge. The skill's own lines read lvl, so +skills raise the fire damage, the conversion and the attack rating; the Basin says +1–3 Fists of Fire can spawn on exceptional and elite claws of item level below 37.

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; the finisher that releases the charges is such a hit. The Basin's page says nothing else specific about players.

Build notes

• Level 20 is 201–221 fire per charge release, 60% of the finisher's physical turned to fire, a 2 2/3-yard explosion and a pyre, for 2 mana a swing and 15 seconds to release.
• The brackets steepen (+5, +10, +20, +30, +40 a level on the minimum), so +skills past 20 are worth more than the early points: level 30 is 501–551.
• The conversion makes the finisher's physical damage fire, all of it from level 34.
• Hard points in Phoenix Strike are +12% each on the charge fire and the pyre, and Fists of Fire's hard points pay Phoenix Strike back.