Mine

A mine (or remote mine) is a type of active skill that throws a device that can be detonated remotely to produce an effect such as delivering a spell payload, launching a volley of arrows, or teleporting the user to that location.

Mechanics

Throwing mines

When a character uses a mine skill, they throw the mine(s) to the target location. Characters have a base mine throwing speed of 0.25 seconds.

Throwing a mine uses mana and reserves an amount of mana, indicated by the skill's mana reservation. The mine will continue to reserve mana until it is detonated or destroyed.

Once a thrown mine lands on the ground it becomes invisible to enemies. This is mostly relevant to PvP since there are no monsters that use mines.

All mine skills, except those supported by Blastchain Mine Support, create mines with an aura that becomes active while those mines are placed but not detonated. The effects of these auras stack cumulatively, up to a limit specified by the skill. These auras are affected by [[aura modifiers.

Mines remain active for a limited duration, after which they expire. Mine duration is specific to each mine skill. If a mine is not detonated before it expires, it is destroyed. Mine duration is not affected by skill effect duration modifiers. Likewise, mine duration modifiers do not affect the duration of skill effects created by mines.

Mines will be destroyed if they take any damage. Mines cannot be targeted directly, but they are vulnerable to area of effect damage. Mines cannot be damaged while they are travelling through the air, or while they are detonating. The passive skill, Clever Construction, can also prevent mines from being damaged for a number of seconds after being thrown.

There is a limit on the number of mines a character can have active at one time. By default, a character can have 15 mines active at once. Throwing an additional mine that would exceed the active mine limit will cause the oldest mine to be destroyed. There are passive skills that can increase this limit.

Detonating mines

While the player's character has any mines active, the Detonate Mines action (mapped to D by default) becomes available. Using the Detonate Mines action initiates a detonation sequence starting with the mine closest to the target location. The detonation sequence detonates the first mine instantly, then after a brief delay, another mine within a short range of the previous one will also be detonated. This continues in an accelerating fashion, where the delay between detonating the next mine decreases each time. Once there are no more mines within proximity to the last one detonated, the detonation sequence will stop.

The mine skill gem will state what its Base Mine Detonation Time is, and that time is modified by Detonation Speed modifiers. Each successive mine detonation in a given detonation sequence has 10% More Detonation Speed.

For example, Blastchain Mine Support has a Base Mine Detonation time of 0.25s, so here's a table showing the detonation time for each mine in a sequence if you had 30% Increased Mine Detonation Tree (e.g. from the passive tree).

The Detonate Mines action is instant and can be used while performing another action, such as throwing a mine or moving. The Detonate Mines action has a 0.2 second cooldown, after which it may be used again to start another detonation sequence. A character can have multiple detonation sequences occurring simultaneously.

Mines can be detonated while in the air. It is not necessary to wait until a mine lands on the ground before it can be detonated.

Mines can also be detonated using the Detonate Mines skill gem. This skill initiates a detonation sequence, just like the Detonate Mines action. The Detonate Mines skill and the Detonate Mines action both share the same cooldown, meaning that when either one is used, both will be placed on cooldown.

Mines detonated by Skitterbots do not initiate a detonation sequence.

Mines casting spells

After a mine has been detonated, if the skill is a Spell, there is a delay of the spell's Cast Time, which uses the mine's casting speed modifiers. Therefore, it's possible to support mines with gems like Faster Casting Support to reduce the delay between the mine being detonated and the spell being cast by the mine, but in practice, this is generally not useful.

Mines as separate entities

Mines are separate entities from the character who throws them, but they use that character's offensive stats when applying damage and various other effects. A spell or attack unleashed by a mine is considered to have been made by the mine itself, rather than the character who threw the mine. This distinction is important to note for certain game mechanics that care about who is making the attack or casting the spell. Included among these are leech, damage reflection, and gaining effects on hit or on kill.

Leech

Through the use of ordinary leech modifiers such as X% of Damage Leeched as Life, it is not possible for a character to leech from the damage dealt by their mines. This is because these leech modifiers only apply to characters who are attacking or casting themselves, not through mines by proxy.

X% of Damage dealt by your Mines is Leeched to you as Life is an example of a leech modifier that does allow the character to leech from the damage dealt by their mines.

Damage reflection

Mines provide total protection from damage reflection, since it is the mines that are dealing damage, not the character who throws them.

Gaining on hit or on kill

Modifiers that grant the character some effect on hit or on kill simply do not work with mines. For example, a character will not gain life, mana or power charges from having their mines kill enemies cursed with Assassin's Mark. Enemies killed by damage over time from mines such as Toxic Rain are attributed as being killed by the character.

Other interactions

• Trigger effects

Mines cannot be thrown by any trigger effects. Mine skills cannot be supported by trigger gems, such as Cast when Damage Taken Support.

• Self-cast support gems

Mine skills cannot be supported by support gems that require spells to be cast, such as Spell Echo Support.

• Traps and totems

Rather bizarrely, mines can create traps and totems. For example, Siege Ballista supported by Trap Support and Blastchain Mine Support will result in a skill that throws a mine. When detonated, the mine lays a trap. When triggered, the trap places a Siege Ballista totem.