Explosive Arrow

Though the Rangers of Oriath wield mighty long bows, they occasionally meet enemies that are too tough for mere arrows alone. Facing such a threat, trained archers have developed mastery of the dreaded Explosive Arrow. When the missile strikes, it bores deep into its target, releasing a volatile, deadly magical poison.

This poison quickly boils the blood surrounding the embedded arrowhead, and within a few moments, a gout of fire erupts from the wound. This caustic spray will burn and damage any adjacent foes. Some skilled marksmen have even developed the ability to fire multiple Explosive Arrows into the same point on a target's body. Doing this not only extends the time before the blood detonation, but it massively increases the violence of the blast.

Description on the official Path of Exile website

Explosive Arrow is a bow attack skill that fires an arrow which acts as a short duration fuse. Applying additional arrows to an enemy extends the duration. When the target dies or the fuses expire, the arrows explode, dealing fire area of effect damage to nearby enemies. The damage and AoE radius are proportional to the number of arrows fired into the target, up to a maximum of 5.

Skill functions and interactions

Explosive Arrow has two separate damaging effects: an attack and a secondary explosion.

Attack: The Explosive Arrow attack is an arrow which deals weapon damage based on the bow equipped. This component of the skill is affected by any modifiers to bow attacks. At the final destination of the arrow, one of three effects will occur:

• If the arrow gets stuck on the terrain or on an obstacle, it will leave a single fuse charge that will explode after a duration.
• If the arrow gets stuck on a target that does not yet have the debuff Hit by Explosive Arrow, it will apply that debuff with a single fuse charge, which expires after a duration.
• If the arrow gets stuck on a target that already has the debuff Hit by Explosive Arrow, it will refresh the duration of the existing debuff and add one fuse charge.

If the arrow pierces or is evaded by a target, it will not leave a fuse charge on the target, but can still leave a fuse charge on the terrain behind it.

Explosion: When the debuff Hit by Explosive Arrow or a fuse stuck on terrain expires, it causes an explosion based on the number of fuse charges, up to a maximum of 5. This damage is secondary area projectile fire damage, and therefore is not affected by modifiers to spell or weapon damage. This explosion has a base critical strike chance of 6% and a base radius of 15 plus 2 times the number of fuse charges. Modifiers to this explosion, which includes critical strike chance, ignite chance, radius, and damage, are based on the instance of the Explosive Arrow skill that originally applied the debuff. Modifiers to any instances of the Explosive Arrow skill used to refresh the duration of the debuff are ignored.

Duration: Modifiers to duration, such as from , will affect the duration of the debuff when it is applied or refreshed, as well as the duration of the fuse charge if it hits the terrain or an obstacle. As such, this is the only relevant modifier on instances of the Explosive Arrow skill used to refresh a pre-existing debuff.

Radius: The base radius of the explosion is {{#show:Explosive Arrow|?Has primary radius}}, +2 for each fuse charge. Modifiers to Radius of Area Skills or Area of Effect radius will apply on the base radius of the explosion.

Block: Like any attack skill, the Explosive Arrow attack can be blocked. However, the blocked attack still applies the debuff, and the subsequent explosion cannot be blocked since it is neither an attack nor a spell. This can be dangerous for players who rely on high block chance for defense.

Gem level progression

Level			Mana Cost	Fire Damage per Fuse	Exp.	Total Exp.
1	28	67	8	N/A	0	0
2	31	73	8	N/A	199345	199345
3	34	79	8	N/A	285815	485160
4	37	85	8	N/A	401344	886504
5	40	92	9	N/A	554379	1440883
6	42	96	9	N/A	477437	1918320
7	44	100	9	N/A	583786	2502106
8	46	104	9	N/A	710359	3212465
9	48	109	9	N/A	1355511	4567976
10	50	113	9	N/A	1138877	5706853
11	52	117	9	N/A	1368233	7075086
12	54	121	10	N/A	1638338	8713424
13	56	125	10	N/A	1956648	10670072
14	58	130	10	N/A	3655184	14325256
15	60	134	10	N/A	3017327	17342583
16	62	138	10	N/A	7759995	25102578
17	64	142	10	N/A	15138193	40240771
18	66	146	10	N/A	26083825	66324596
19	68	151	10	N/A	62620247	128944843
20	70	155	10	N/A	211708088	340652931
21	72	159	10	N/A	N/A	N/A
22	74	N/A	10	N/A	N/A	N/A
23	76	N/A	11	N/A	N/A	N/A
24	78	N/A	11	N/A	N/A	N/A
25	80	N/A	11	N/A	N/A	N/A
26	82	N/A	11	N/A	N/A	N/A
27	84	N/A	11	N/A	N/A	N/A
28	86	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
29	88	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
30	90	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
31	91	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
32	92	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
33	93	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
34	94	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
35	95	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
36	96	N/A	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
37	97	N/A	13	N/A	N/A	N/A
38	98	N/A	13	N/A	N/A	N/A
39	99	N/A	13	N/A	N/A	N/A
40	100	N/A	13	N/A	N/A	N/A

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Explosive Arrow.

Note that helmet enchantments are no longer obtainable since version 3.23.0 and can only be obtained in permanent leagues as already enchanted items from before this patch.

Name		Labyrinth	Stats	Spawn Weighting
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Attack Speed 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 10% increased Attack Speed	helmet 75
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Attack Speed 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 15% increased Attack Speed	helmet 75
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Damage 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow deals 25% increased Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Damage 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow deals 40% increased Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Increased Duration 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 25% increased Duration	helmet 50
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Increased Duration 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 40% increased Duration	helmet 50
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Area Of Effect 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 16% increased Area of Effect	helmet 75
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Area Of Effect 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 24% increased Area of Effect	helmet 75
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Reduced Duration 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 20% reduced Duration	helmet 50
Enchantment Explosive Arrow Reduced Duration 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Explosive Arrow has 30% reduced Duration	helmet 50

Version history

Version	Changes
1.1.1b	Fixed a bug that caused the first level of Explosive Arrow to have a greater mana cost than intended.
0.9.12m	The explosion damage is now classified as projectile damage and is hence scaled down by Lesser and Greater Multiple Projectiles support gems.
0.9.12f	Fixed a client crash with Explosive Arrow.
0.9.12	Explosive Arrows now have their own arrow effect. If they miss and stick into terrain, they'll explode as normal after a short time. Now does not explode each time it pierces through monsters.
0.9.8	Reduced the mana cost.
0.9.5	Made Explosive Arrow more powerful. The damage has been increased and the fuse time is now one second.
0.9.4	Increased the damage Explosive Arrow.
0.9.3g	Changed Explosive Arrow to not have the damage scaled by mods that affect Spell Damage.
0.9.3e	Increased damage by 15%.
0.9.2g	Fixed a server crash that would occasionally occur when using Explosive Arrow.
0.9.2f	Fixed a bug with Explosive Arrow not exploding serverside when the monster is killed by the arrow outright. Fixed a bug with Explosive Arrow interacting badly with other buffs. Fixed two server crashes that occured rarely when using Explosive Arrow.
0.9.2b	Updated the description to describe that the Area of effect of the explosion is proportional to the number of fuse charges.
0.9.2	Explosive Arrow has been added to the game.