Fan of Knives

Fan of Knives is a Demon Hunter Tier 3 skill unlocked at level 6. The Demon Hunter quickly whips around in a full circle, sending out a nova of blades that hit all targets in range, many of them multiple times.

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]
Fan of Knives Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Demon Hunter
Skill Description:
Send out a nova of blades to cut and slow your enemies.
Skill Details:
Type:	Damage
Quantity:	None
Effect:	Target
School:	Physical
Mana cost:	Low
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	NA
Cooldown:	None
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

The Demon Hunter magically summons a wealth of blades, distributing them in a spinning arc, damaging and slowing enemies within close-range, similar to the nova spells from Diablo of yore.

Skill Design

Fan of Knives may have the best D3 acronym yet.

Fan of Knives is a short-range area-of-effect ability that damages all of the enemies in range of the skill. This type of skill is best used either when surrounded by enemies or within close quarters where the enemies are bunched together to a point where the skill will penetrate deeply into the group. The knives also include a slowing debuff.

Skill Rank Table

• Rank 1: Throw knives out in a spiral around you doing X-X damage to all enemies within X feet of you. Your knives will also slow enemies by X% for X seconds.

Synergies

• No synergies with any of the traits are yet known.

Runestone Effects

No runestone effects are confirmed. There's some speculation that the red, honeycomb pattern on the ground beneath the Demon Hunter's feet in two screenshots from February 2011 show a runestone effect. That's not confirmed, and this might just be a new animation upgrade for the skill, since it was last seen at Blizzcon 2010.

The second shot does not show the FoK blades, but since the red pattern appears to be fading, it's probable that FoK was cast a second ago and the fast-vanishing blades disappeared from sight before the red pattern could fade entirely.

Fan of Knives rune effect graphic?

Blades gone, but the red graphic remains.

Development

This skill was first shown at BlizzCon 2010 as one of the originals when the Demon Hunter was unveiled. As many fans noticed upon announcement of the Demon Hunter and getting to see her skills for the first time, Fan of Knives is a returning skill from previous Blizzard games, namely WarCraft III and World of WarCraft. In WarCraft III, it was an ability used by the "Warden" hero character, and in World of WarCraft it is a level 80 ability used by the Rogue class. Fan of Knives appears to be making a niche within the Blizzard pool of spells and abilities, such as other spells like Teleport, and Blizzard.

Graphics

Faces. Knives. An uneven match.

Fan of Knives is a relatively simple spell. The Demon Hunter whirls around in a complete circle, and the air around her is disturbed and distorted as numerous blades appear and fly out in a circular area.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo 3 screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo 3 screenshots and pictures
• Fan of Knifes specific gallery contents

• 

  Fan of Knives.

• 

  Where does she get those wonderful toys?

• 

  FoK, another picture.