Infernal Blow

Tracing a series of fiery runes on the length of their weapon, the caster prepares to unleash the Infernal Blow. Once imbued with fiery energy, the weapon discharges the moment it strikes any enemy. Infernal Blow burns anything struck with searing Hellfire, incinerating bone, flesh and armor. Perhaps the deadliest property of the enchantment lies in what follows a fatal hit. Any foe slain by Infernal Blow will explode in a violent conflagration, showering anything nearby with flame, igniting and killing with abandon. Masters of the Infernal Blow delight in watching enormous chain reactions of detonating victims.

Description on the official Path of Exile website

Infernal Blow is a melee attack skill that converts half of Physical Damage to Fire Damage, applying a special debuff to enemies. If the enemy dies while affected by this debuff, they will explode, dealing fire damage to nearby enemies. Requires a Sword, Axe, Mace, Staff or Unarmed.

Skill functions and interactions

Damage conversion: Like all converted damage, the fire portion of Infernal Blow's damage will be modified by both fire damage increases and physical damage increases.

Duration: If the debuff caused by Infernal Blow is still active when the monster dies, it will explode even if Infernal Blow was not the killing blow. That makes this skill very effective with Melee Splash.

Explosion: The explosion deals a percentage of the corpses' maximum life as fire secondary damage in an area around the corpse. It is neither an attack nor a spell, so in particular it is not affected by modifiers to melee damage, weapon damage or spell damage, but is affected by Elemental Damage with Attack Skills. The explosion damage cannot be reflected. Each explosion can roll a critical strike independently from the Infernal Blow attack. While in a party, the explosion ignores the increased life added for each player beyond the first and treats the monster's life as if you were solo.

Monster Types: Magic (blue named) and rare (yellow named) monsters can be exploded, but unique monsters (orange named) cannot be.

Area of effect modifiers will only apply to the explosion itself, not the melee attack.

Gem level progression

Level			Damage Effectiveness	Attack Damage	Exp.	Total Exp.
1	12	33	104%	104%	0	0
2	15	39	107%	107.3%	15249	15249
3	19	48	111%	110.5%	41517	56766
4	23	56	114%	113.8%	81983	138749
5	27	64	117%	117.1%	147968	286717
6	31	73	120%	120.3%	250557	537274
7	35	81	124%	123.6%	405086	942360
8	38	88	127%	126.8%	447718	1390078
9	41	94	130%	130.1%	615318	2005396
10	44	100	133%	133.4%	834639	2840035
11	47	106	137%	136.6%	1570760	4410795
12	50	113	140%	139.9%	1633987	6044782
13	53	119	143%	143.2%	2151030	8195812
14	56	125	146%	146.4%	2812189	11008001
15	59	132	150%	149.7%	5099360	16107361
16	62	138	153%	152.9%	9400731	25508092
17	64	142	156%	156.2%	15273366	40781458
18	66	146	159%	159.5%	26286582	67068040
19	68	151	163%	162.7%	62890590	129958630
20	70	155	166%	166%	212046017	342004647
21	72	159	169%	169.3%	N/A	N/A
22	74	N/A	173%	172.5%	N/A	N/A
23	76	N/A	176%	175.8%	N/A	N/A
24	78	N/A	179%	179.1%	N/A	N/A
25	80	N/A	182%	182.3%	N/A	N/A
26	82	N/A	186%	185.6%	N/A	N/A
27	84	N/A	189%	188.8%	N/A	N/A
28	86	N/A	192%	192.1%	N/A	N/A
29	88	N/A	195%	195.4%	N/A	N/A
30	90	N/A	199%	198.6%	N/A	N/A
31	91	N/A	200%	200.3%	N/A	N/A
32	92	N/A	202%	201.9%	N/A	N/A
33	93	N/A	204%	203.5%	N/A	N/A
34	94	N/A	205%	205.2%	N/A	N/A
35	95	N/A	207%	206.8%	N/A	N/A
36	96	N/A	208%	208.4%	N/A	N/A
37	97	N/A	210%	210.1%	N/A	N/A
38	98	N/A	212%	211.7%	N/A	N/A
39	99	N/A	213%	213.3%	N/A	N/A
40	100	N/A	215%	214.9%	N/A	N/A

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Infernal Blow.

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 Infernal Blow Damage 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	25% increased Infernal Blow Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Damage 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	40% increased Infernal Blow Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Increased Damage Per Stack 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	Infernal Blow Debuff deals an additional 3% of Damage per Charge	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Increased Damage Per Stack 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	Infernal Blow Debuff deals an additional 5% of Damage per Charge	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Physical Damage Percent To Add As Fire Damage 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	10% of Infernal Blow Physical Damage gained as Extra Fire Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Physical Damage Percent To Add As Fire Damage 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	15% of Infernal Blow Physical Damage gained as Extra Fire Damage	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Area Of Effect 1	66	Merciless Labyrinth	16% increased Infernal Blow Area of Effect	helmet 75
Enchantment Infernal Blow Area Of Effect 2	75	Eternal Labyrinth	24% increased Infernal Blow Area of Effect	helmet 75

Version history

Version	Changes
2.1.0	Attack skills that have their damage based on the wielded weapon have their mana costs fixed in place from level 1 onwards. Radius increased by 22%.
2.0.0	Base damage increased by 4% (from 125% to 130% of base damage). Now grants 0.5% increased area of effect radius per 1% of quality (was 1% per 1% quality). The explosion effect can no longer reflect damage to the player. The explosion damage has been reduced from 25% to 10% of monsters life.
1.3.0	The mana costs of Elemental Hit, , Infernal Blow and Lightning Strike have been reduced.
1.0.0	The effect for Infernal Blow has been improved.
0.11.4	Fixed a bug where Infernal Blow could still apply to targets if the attack missed.
0.10.2	Infernal Blow's physical damage now increases by 4% per level rather than 3%.
0.10.0	Now has +25% damage effectiveness rather than +12% attack damage.
0.9.12	Now works with unarmed attacks.
0.9.11i	Fixed Infernal Blow so that it benefits from increased area of effect.
0.9.4c	Set the default critical strike chances of Infernal Blow (7%)
0.9.3g	Changed Infernal Blow to not have the damage scaled by mods that affect Spell Damage.
0.9.3c	Fixed a bug that caused damage bonuses to not appear on many weapon skills. Increased damage by raising its flat damage bonus from 10% to 12%.
0.9.3	The stats which convert damage from one type to another now calculate the damage in a way that takes into account your physical damage bonuses. Fixed a bug where Infernal Blow was able to explode an enemy several times.
0.9.2	Infernal Blow does more damage at higher levels than before.
0.8.6	Added new skill prototype: "Infernal Blow"