Exploding Palm

Exploding Palm is a Spirit Generating Monk skill unlocked at Level 12. The Monk inflicts internal damage that can cause a target to explode.

This is one of the Monk's combo skills. Combo skills generate Spirit.

Background

Exploding Palm in action

Using innate knowledge of internal parts of humanoids, the Monk sets off organ damage that potentially can have very explosive effects.

Skill Effects

The following is a very quick list. See the Exploding Palm rune effects page for a more thorough summary of rune effects, or any of the individual rune pages for numbers, screenshots, blue quotes, and much more.

Icon	Skill	Description

Exploding Palm Spirit Generator Combo (Level 12)

[e] Generate: 6 Spirit per attack The first two strikes in the attack deal 100% weapon damage. The third strike causes the target to bleed for 65% of weapon damage per second for 3 seconds. If the target dies while bleeding, it explodes, dealing 30% of the target's maximum Life as physical damage to all other enemies nearby.

	Impending Doom	Increases the duration of the bleed effect to 10 seconds.
	Creeping Demise	The bleed effect hits up to 8 targets standing in front of you.
	The Flesh is Weak	The first two strikes cause the enemy to take 10% additional damage for 5 seconds. This effect stacks up to 8 times on each target.
	Strong Spirit	If a target dies and explodes with the bleed on them, gain 7 Spirit for each enemy hit by the explosion.
	Essence Burn	The third strike causes the target to burn for 95% weapon damage as Fire damage every second for 3 seconds. If the target dies while burning it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 100% weapon damage as Fire damage for 2 seconds. This effect can chain repeatedly.

Note: Information is based on a level 60 character and rank 7 runestones.

Exploding Palm Video

A video of Exploding Palm can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel.

Skill Design

Pop!

This was probably the coolest spell most people saw at BlizzCon 2009, just for the massive blood explosions it created. It was magnificently overpowered, working like an early D2C version of Corpse Explosion. Triggering the third stage of this one, then beating that monster down with 100 Fists, was almost certain to clear any room, killing every monster anywhere near melee range.

It will have to be nerfed in the final game since this is just insane for such a low level skill.

Combo skills are essential for Monks. Combos do bonus damage, grant special properties (i.e. lightning damage and interrupt attacks on Hands of Lightning), and build up the Spirit needed to cast other skills. All combos have three stages, each progressively more powerful and flashier.

Synergies

• No synergies with any of the passive skills are yet known.

Development

Exploding Palm was first shown at BlizzCon 2009 as one of the originals when the Monk was unveiled. Flux was able to try it out:[1]

This was probably the coolest spell most people saw at Blizzcon, just for the massive blood explosions it created. It was magnificently overpowered, working like an early D2C version of Corpse Explosion. Triggering the third stage of this one, then beating that monster down with 100 Fists, was almost certain to clear any room, killing every monster anywhere near melee range.

This skill was indeed moved from Tier 2 down to Tier 5 for BlizzCon 2010. Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Exploding Palm became a level 12 skill.

Previous Versions

See the Monk skill archive for more details on previous versions of Exploding Palm and other Monk skills.

Graphics

Exploding Palm is always a red and bloody mess.

Fans have occasionally pointed out the oddity of this skill causing a huge, red-blooded explosion no matter what it's used on; bloodless skeletons, monsters with green or blue blood, etc. This issue was playfully addressed by Bashiok, the Diablo 3 community manager, in a forum post in April 2010. [2]

We have tons of unique death types, the exploding palm effect you’re talking about though is an effect of the skill itself though and not the makeup of the creature it’s used against.

When you apply the bleed-DoT from Exploding Palm a beating heart appears over the creature it’s applied to. After they take enough steps or are otherwise killed the heart explodes and deals AE damage. So it’s not actually the skeleton exploding (although that happens too) that’s causing the blood effect, but the skill itself.

...blood explosion is the AE damaging effect of the skill that occurs when the subject dies. It occurs along with the death effect of whatever it’s applied to, and isn’t an increase of their normal death effect.

Media

Exploding Palm can be seen in action on video here:

• Gameplay: Blizzcon 2009
• Video: August 2011 Monk Skill Animations

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Exploding Palm specific gallery contents

• 

  Exploding monster from stage 3 Exploding Palm

• 

  Exploding Palm by GAMi

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Monk Skill Tree stats and discussion
• Zediono's translation of JudgeHype's pre-beta report -- IncGamers 1st Aug 2011
• Silva's Monk Runestone Effects -- IncGamers 6th Sep 2011
• Monk Active Skills -- Diablo III 12th Sep 2011

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer primary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer secondary

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer corpses

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Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses