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 ranged 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 AoE 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

Charges: The damage from Explosive Arrow charges will not show properly on the character screen because the damage is not being caused by the skill itself but rather the charges applied.

The charges deal secondary area projectile fire damage. They do not do spell or bow damage, and by extension they do not do weapon or attack damage either. This means the following modifiers do not apply:

• Life Gain on Hit
• Quill Rain's reduced weapon damage
• Weapon elemental damage
• Iron Grip
• Iron Will

Duration: Increased skill duration passives or supports will increase the amount of time before charges will detonate.

Piercing: Explosive Arrow projectiles which pierce will not leave charges (and explode) on each target they pierced. Only on the target where the arrow gets stuck will the charge explode.

Misses: When an arrow misses a mob the arrow will still explode where it landed in the terrain.

Radius: Base radius before any charges is 15. Each charge will add +2 radius. % area modifiers are applied after adding the fuse radius to base (e.g. 5 charges with 40% increased area = (15 + 5*2) * 1.40 = 35 radius).

Block: Like any arrow skill, the arrows can be blocked. However, the explosion cannot (neither with Spell Block). Because monsters usually cannot block, this affects usually players. This may look natural, if the player fails to block the arrow, he should not have another chance to block the explosion, but if the explosion comes from another target, a player with high block might find himself in unexpected trouble. Minions (unless affected by Necromantic Aegis) and walls will help the user of Explosive Arrow to damage the blocker easily.

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

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.