Detonation Catalyst

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

Detonation Catalyst
Level	5
School1	Alchemy
School2	Fire
Source(s)	Book of Battle Book of Spontaneous Combustion
Casting noise	5
Spell noise	15
Power Cap	100
Flags	Selfench

Affixes a volatile catalyst to the caster's fists or melee weapon, causing each of their strikes to release a fiery explosion at its primary target. The caster and their allies are protected from the explosion's effects. The activity of the catalyst may be prolonged indefinitely as long as the caster continues to attack, but it rapidly loses potency when they take other actions. The base damage of the caster's weapon and the caster's spellpower each increase the explosion's damage.

Detonation Catalyst is a level 5 Fire Magic / Alchemy spell that causes melee hits to spark a 3x3 explosion on their target for a short time. These explosions do not hurt the user or their allies.

Useful Info

Causes melee hits to inflict an explosion centered on the melee target, dealing fire damage to enemies dependent on the weapon's base damage:

• If holding a weapon: 2d([9/5 * base_damage] + [pow/10] - 8), ignoring brand
• Unarmed Combat: 2d(base_damage + [pow/10] - 8), counting skill as base damage

The spell lasts for 3-5 decaAut, but attacking prevents the duration from decreasing.

Detonation Catalyst does not explode with cleaving attacks, but reaching attacks, Wu Jian martial attacks, rampage, Vhi's Electric Charge, and Manifold Assault all create explosions.

Coglins will create two explosions but only one explosion will be animated per attack, and the UI will average the two weapons' base damage together.

The explosions will create steam but are not strong enough burn trees.

Strategy

This spell is essentially an upgrade over the old Fire Brand spell; it gives your weapon an extremely powerful "brand" (well over double raw base damage) and AOE.

Compared to Sticky Flame, Detonation Catalyst has AOE, uses your weapon attack speed, and has a longer duration. Sticky Flame is quieter, never misses, and allows you to do other actions once Fire is inflicted. Sticky Flame can deal more if base damage or attack speed are low. Regardless, you could always use both spells together, with Sticky Flame itself providing an accuracy boost.

Constantly causing explosions with every strike makes a lot of noise. Be mindful of attracting attention to yourself.

Tips & Tricks

• Using this spell around water is an excellent way to make lots of steam to obscure vision and inflict damage.
• This spell strongly synergizes with Wu Jian, as Whirlwind and Walljump can trigger explosions on multiple enemies at once, and the god requires no skill investment. Manifold Assault can also trigger multiple explosions, but requires a hefty XP investment and has a high MP cost.
• The speed brand is especially strong with this spell, as speed allows you to get more explosions with no downside. Conversely, the heavy brand is worse, as it'll reduce the number of explosions for no increase in explosion damage.

History

• Detonation Catalyst was added in version 0.33.