Molten Strike

Molten Strike is a Strike (Attack) skill that strikes an enemy, with some of the physical damage converted to fire damage. Each strike creates multiple molten ball projectiles that land to deal damage in a small area.

Skill functions

An attack with Molten Strike consists of two parts:

• An initial melee hit with the keywords Fire, Attack, Melee
• A projectile attack with the keywords Fire, Attack, Projectile, AoE

Modifiers that require the keywords Melee, Projectile, or AoE only apply to the appropriate portions of the attack. For example, supporting Molten Strike with Melee Physical Damage Support will increase the damage of the melee hit but not the projectiles. That said, passive points that grant Increased damage with one-handed melee weapons for example will in fact affect the projectile attack as well if one is using a one-handed weapon, since it is still an attack that is dealt with a melee weapon (though the damage you're dealing is not actually melee damage).

Magma projectiles: On a successful hit Molten Strike will launch a number of projectiles a variable distance in different directions before each lands simultaneously, hitting in a circular area around each projectile. Projectiles will travel a random distance between 2 and 25 units by default, with projectiles from the same attack traveling different distances. Modifiers to both projectile speed and area of effect will alter the distance projectiles can travel. The direction of each projectile is also chosen randomly along a 270 degree (3/4 circle) arc, with the center of the blank zone pointed at the attacking character. Upon landing each projectile explodes with a hit radius of 9dealing (55 to 92.5)% of full weapon damage, of which 60% of physical is converted to fire damage.

Projectile overlap: It is possible for more than one projectile from this skill to hit a single enemy, including the enemy that was already hit by the melee attack. The likelihood of hitting the initial target is reduced due to the ability of each projectile to travel much further than its hit radius. Molten Strike's projectiles tend to be clumped towards the center and away from the edges. This is because unlike other skills such as Firestorm which sample uniformly across their potential landing area, Molten Strike's projectile landing positions are determined by choosing their direction and distance from two separate uniform distributions.

Travel distance: Projectiles have a minimum travel distance of 2 units and a maximum travel distance of 25 units by default. Modifiers to projectile speed and area of effect affect the distance projectiles can travel.

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

Tooltip damage: Damage per hit and DPS displayed on the skill tooltip show only the melee portion of the attack, with that of projectiles dependent on the average number of hits expected from the skill.

Skill interactions

Dual Wielding: Dual wielding attacks with Molten Strike will alternate the weapon being swung.

Gain on hit: The stated amount on hit will be restored for both the initial hit and for each projectile that strikes an enemy.

Iron Grip: This will allow Strength's melee physical damage bonus to apply to the projectile portion of the attack.

Area of effect: Increases and reductions to AoE change both the explosion area of individual projectiles and the area they are spread over, resulting in similar degree of coverage over a larger or smaller area. AoE bonuses only affect the outer radius; the inner radius is fixed.

Projectile Count: Supporting Molten Strike with Lesser Multiple Projectiles Support or Greater Multiple Projectiles Support will increase the number of projectiles fired while reducing their damage, but will not affect the initial melee hit in any way.

Pierce, fork and chain Projectiles: Molten Strike projectiles cannot chain, pierce or fork, since they are ground-targeted.

Point Blank: Projectiles are affected by Point Blank even though the melee attack is not. While the description of Point Blank doesn't make this exactly clear, the damage multiplier received from it is proportional to the distance it has traveled from the melee target's location at the time the projectile was created.

Vicious Projectiles Support: The Projectiles will receive the damage multiplier, however Molten Strike attack speed will not be lessened because it is a Melee Attack that triggers a Projectile Attack, and is not a Projectile Attack itself.

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