Explosive Blast buff proposal

As in every season, here I am proposing a buff for a Explosive Blast (EB from now on) build :).

  • Why?

EB builds are in my opinion really fun.

Most (if not all) wizard’s builds usually implies standing still: Energy Twister, Meteor back in the day, anything based on Arcane Torrent, and even Archon builds. Or cast-and-run mechanics: Firebird also back in the day, Hydras.

It would be great to have a viable run-and-destroy build and EB is the skill for that as you can cast it without having to stop. Something similar to what the barb does with Whirlwind builds. EB is the skill for that as you cast it without having to stop.

  • How?

In order to buf a build based on EB we would need to change a few items. Take into account that the items and numbers I propose here are merely that, a proposal. Other items could be chosen and other numbers could be used if the build is too powerful or still too weak.

As we saw in this season (22) a new build for Energy Twister has risen succesfully and the reason behind it is the amount of damage multipliers it benefits from:

  1. The Twisted Sword: Up to 750% increased damage.
  2. Deathwish: Up to 325% increased damage.
  3. Valthek’s Rebuke: Up to 400% increased damage.
  4. Ranslor’s Folly: Up to 300% increased damage.
  5. Etched Sigil: Up to 250% increased damage.

For a total of up to 2025% increased damage.

I propose something similar for EB, for example:

  1. Wand of Woh: The signature wand of the build. Very nice damage buff and synergy with chain reaction rune. I would tweak a bit the range to [350 - 400%], it is very annoying dropping a nice WoW in every other affix that become useless because of a low damage in the legendary affix.
  2. Orb of Infinite Depth: The signature orb of the build. I would change the 10% increased damage per stack to something like [75 - 100%] increased EB damage.
  3. Blood-Magic Blade: Remove the utterly useless legendary affix and maybe put something like EB gets the effect of the flash rune and [225 - 300%] increased EB damage.
  4. Maloth’s Focus: Remove the legendary affix and put something like [225 - 300%] increased EB damage and its radius to 15 yards.
  5. Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan: Change legendary affix to Reduce the cost of EB by 25% and increases EB damage by [200 - 250%] while moving.

For up to 1650% increased EB damage. These numbers would need to be tweaked as EB hits more frequently than Energy Twister, but I think the idea is clear.


  • Edit 1

As suggested by Lexa, movement speed could be added to some part of the gear.

Also the dagger was a poor choice, other weapons with higher base damage would be better.


Thanks for reading. Feedback will be appreciated. Support too.

I’d settle for Increasing the damage boost of Wand of Woh, and then have it gain the Chain Reaction rune effect. Followed by buffing Orb of Infinite Depth and then having it’s damage bonus changed to affect only Explosive Blast instead of being global (similar to your number 2 suggestion).

Anything more than that would be gravy to me.

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Hm. My gut feeling is that the Chain Reaction rune should not be granted by Wand of Woh. It already causes repeated detonations, so I guess having that rune on a separate item would fit better.

That’s a low level craft - if anything it should be Blood Magic Edge. Nevertheless I disagree. It rubs me wrong to see all these weapon multipliers that make using Aetherwalker completely impossible if you want to deal damage. This is why I detest the latest changes quite a bit.

What could be done:

Wand of Woh: [Legendary Wand]
+Min/Max damage
+INT
+4-6 to pickup radius (additional secondary)
+3 Random Magic Properties
The damage of Explosive Blast is increased by 500-600% and 3 additional blasts are triggered after casting Explosive Blast. Half your pickup radius increases the detonation’s area of effect.

Orb of Infinite Depth: [Legendary Source]
+Min/Max damage
+INT
+Critical Hit Chance Increased by 8.0-10.0%
+3 Random Magic Properties
Reduces the cooldown of Explosive Blast by 50% and increases the damage dealt by 350-400%. Hitting an enemy with Explosive Blast increases your damage reduction and movement speed by 20% for 6 seconds, stacking up to 4 times.

Now, if they add something else, it should be only 1 item, and for obvious reasons I would prefer to not see another weapon and especially not a dagger that has bad base damage by default. Leave that kind of trash for skills without any item support yet. I could agree to pants, maybe some new boots or a belt. Depends on what that thing does. How about something like this:

Explosive Blast gains the Short Fuse and Chain Reaction runes and deals 350-400% more damage. Attacking with Exlosive Blast pulls enemies from up to 30 yards to you and adds a short delay before actually detonating. You can pull enemies once every ? seconds.

Having Chain Reaction would make the other Explosive Blast Runes viable; meaning you could actually use different elements instead of fire for it.

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Yes, you are correct, it’s more or less necessary. I simply said that I wanted it on a different item than Woh, because the wand itself already grants multi-detonation. But then it looks like I forgot to add that rune effect to the item idea at the end of my prior post. Shame on me. Now corrected. Thanks for pointing out.

2 Likes

I totally agree, items with damage multipliers become so important that they don’t leave space for utility stuff like Aetherwalker. Sadly that’s how the game works, 2 items with +200% damage are way more powerful than 1 item with +400%. To fit your request a huge change in the core of the game would be needed and its impact would be incredibly wide. One of the goals of this proposal is keeping it simple so it could be considered by the developers :-s, but as aforementioned I understand and agree.

I like the idea of binding the detonation radius to the pickup radius.

I also like the idea of a movement speed improve in the gear. With the Energy Twister build I feel soooo slow.

Yes, the dagger was a poor choice, there are some staves that could fit or even swords/maces/etc. I wouldn’t go for boots as there would be two nice options already, Illusory boots and Ice climbers. The belt though seems quite interesting (maybe also bracers?). I wouldn’t add the short fuse rune though, EB builds are constantly exploding so I think that rune would be superfluous. The pull effect though seems quite interesting.

Like Lexa points out it would be good to avoid more weapons, instead an armor piece could serve that purpose. The reason is precisely because we have no idea if the fourth slot will be permanent and it could be wise to be able to fit in something else in there.
I wouldn’t go low on the damage either.
The third piece could also have a trigger function for black hole or slow time.
In that regard I must confess that I’m really divided there are good and bad sides to it.
A 7-9 multiplier (600-800%) on WoW and 150-200% per stack on the orb plus 20% damage reduction and run speed.

Yes, the fourth slot is something to pay attention to. I would like to think that they will keep it, I think it’s been a great addition to the game and it opens a lot of possibilities to all the builds.

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You are correct. A lot of things are uncertain right now because the fourth cube slot has a huge impact on how wizards can perform. Lets also not forget our almighty Shadow Clones.

That being said, right now the fourth slot is pretty much mandatory for wizards, given the changes brought by the last patch. Be it for better mobility or sheer power. Or even build flexibility… one unrestricted slot can bring a lot of freedom if you can use it for weapons, armor and jewelry alike. The future without it will be pretty bleak unless they have another big batch of wizard updates coming for the next ptr/patch.

On a side note, is there anyone else feeling mocked by the Shadow Clones and their performance? I mean look at what they can do with skills like Disintegrate, Ray of Frost or even Blizzard. wtf? Where’s that kind of power for the actual character skills?

Personal taste, I guess… I don’t really like the activation delay. But my proposal was meant to be a draft of how a third EB item could look like. The reason why I added that rune and a short delay is that the monster pull effect can leave you wide open for melee attacks from the pulled mobs if the explosion is delayed. Well, unless it also stuns for a short time.

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Haha, yes me. The same goes for all classes to be honest but yes it is making my eyes tear up :smiley:
As for the Aether Walker I would love if it got changed from weapon to boots or pants.
If so then any third option could be a weapon, regarding the EB spell and others.

Wand of Woh
The damage of Explosive Blast is increased by 400% and 3 additional blasts are triggered after casting Explosive Blast.
DPS = x15

Orb of Infinite Depth
Each time you hit an enemy with Explosive Blast your damage is increased by 10% and your damage reduction is increased by 20% for 6 seconds. This effect can stack up to 4 times.
DPS = x1.40
DR = 80%

There are no Bracer, ring, nor belt that synergizes with Explosive Blast.

Combined, EB gains x21 DPS and 80% DR.

Not really bad IMO. But its blast radius is short. Thus, it’s AOE is very limited and not so powerful as other say Chantodo…

Had a very funny Idea, that’s probably not worth anything. But still… Would be super fun if there would be a Unique Legendary that does the follow. Every next Explosion of Explosive Blast is of another element. Would allow it to solely trigger Tal Rasha and Elemental Exposure. Time for Stone of Jordan to shine?

It’s a bit sad that almost every Item in the game is bound to 4 Primary + 2 Secondary rolls. On the Occulus there is this affix that reduces the cooldown of teleport. Affixes like that rolling on items would be awesome f.e. reduces all your cooldowns by 2 seconds or inreases all your resistance rolls on items by 5 %. Or even better. Have a Season of Forging. With alot of small affixes you can smith on your items. Pretty expensive of course and aimed for endgame content min-maxing.