Exploding Palm

Exploding Palm is a spirit-spending Monk skill. It costs 40 spirit and deals 220% weapon damage over 3 seconds.

This skill changed radically, late in Diablo 3's development. Until March 2012, it was a Spirit Generating combo skill that dealt two weak hits, before the third placed a curse effect on the target. If the target died with this curse active, it would explode, dealing a percent of the monster's life as AoE damage to all nearby enemies.

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.

Rune 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.

<skill class="Monk">Exploding Palm</skill>

Exploding Palm Video

A video of the early version of Exploding Palm can be seen below, courtesy of the DiabloInc You Tube channel. This does not represent how the skill works in the game any longer.

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 Diablo 2 version of Corpse Explosion. Killing any monster with this heart debuff engaged was almost certain to clear any room, killing every monster anywhere near melee range.

The effect and graphics were both nerfed considerably by the time of the beta test, with the glorious blood explosion changed to a light pink orb effect, much to the displeasure of most players.

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. Additional slight level adjustments went on during the beta testing, before the skill was entirely redesigned in March 2012.

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.

During the early "blood supernova" version, fans pointed out the oddity of that bloody effect emanating from bloodless enemies like skeletons, or from monsters with green or blue blood. This issue was playfully addressed by Bashiok 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

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer bloodandbone

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer reanimation

Template:Skill navbox Necromancer curses