[[File:Area-damage-paragon1damage1.jpgpng|thumb|300px|Area Damage via Paragon points.]]Area Damage or '''AD '''(also initially called Splash Damage) is a 20% chance of all attacks dealing X% damage to nearby enemies. This means that every time a character hits an enemy, all nearby enemies within 10 yards have a 20% chance of taking some % of the base attack damage.

The likelihood of Area Damage can not be increased above 20%. What can be boosted, by Paragon Points and by item affixes, is the % of damage dealt per splash. This A variety of item slots can be raised grant up to 50% (1% per point) by Paragon Points, and by 5-20% per item affix. Area Damage affixes can be found on many itemseach, including [[weapons]], [[rings]], [[amulets]], [[gloves]], [[shoulders]], and off-hand items ([[quivers]], [[mojos]], [[sources]]), for a total possible value of well over 100%. (See maximum values below.)

==Splash * As of [[Patch 2.0.4]] There are no class skills that boost Area Damage Utility==, either by frequency or output.

The limiting factor is that critical damage is not incorporated into the Splash ==Area Damage, thus all splashes are fairly small amounts of damage, compared to the +300% Function and higher critical hit damage most end game characters are dealing. As currently utilized, Splash Damage is not considered powerful enough to base character strategy around. Utility==

For a hypothetical exampleThis property was not very useful when first tested[http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/splash-damage-in-reaper-of-souls-boom-or-bust] during the [[Reaper of Souls]] Beta test, a skill like since [[Sweeping Windcritical hit damage]] was not included. At that deals 20% damage 100% of point the time is equivalent in damage output to 100% Splash Damage that hits 20% of AD only [[proced]] from the time, and:# Achieving 100% Area Damage requires a lot of gear + Paragon Points# Sweeping Wind and other such skills Crit base damage, boosting the damage 4x or 5x for well-geared characterswhich made it inadequate.

That saidThis changed during testing, some players are fans of and when the property modifier went live in [[D3v2]] and swear by in [[RoS]] itincluded critical hit damage. It's possible that builds or play styles will be found that utilize high Splash Thus a character with 50% Area Damage very effectivelywho dealt 1, especially if uncommon Reaper of Souls legendary items add unknown bonuses 000,000 damage with a crit would deal 500,000k damage to every nearby target that successfully proced the property20% chance to take AD.

[[File:Area-AD is devastating against large groups, especially with procing with AoE attacks, since the chances for it to work increase dramatically. For instance, if an attack hits 10 enemies in a bunch, all 10 will proc AD against the other 9. Thus a single attack that hits 10 enemies would generate 90 AD checks (10 enemies x 9 AD checks each), potentially creating a much larger total amount of AD damage-tooltip1.jpg|center|thumb|600px|Area Damage displaythan the initial attack itself generated.]]