Living Bomb

Living Bomb
Living Bomb 40 yd  range 1.5% of base mana Instant cast The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking x Fire damage over 12 sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal an additional x Fire damage to the target and all other enemies within 10 yards. May be spread by Inferno Blast.
Usable by
Class	Mage
Properties
Type	Offensive
School	Fire
Casting time	Instant cast
Cooldown	(GCD 1.5 sec)
Talents
Talented	Yes
Specialization	Fire
Level required	75
Related debuff
Magic Living Bomb Causes x Fire damage every 3 sec. After 12 sec, the target explodes, causing x Fire damage to the target and all other enemies within 10 yards. Duration: 12 seconds
TCG image

• Living Bomb
• 40 yd  range
• 1.5% of base mana
• Instant cast
• The target becomes a Living Bomb, taking x Fire damage over 12 sec. When this effect ends, or the target dies, it explodes to deal an additional x Fire damage to the target and all other enemies within 10 yards.
  
  May be spread by Inferno Blast.

“

Pop quiz! You've got a bomb attached to your soul. What do you do? - Riley Sizzleswitch TCG Scourgewar

”

Living Bomb is a mage talent available at level 75 for those with the fire specialization. It debuffs the target with a DoT, dealing damage over 12 seconds, modified by spell power. After the debuff expires, or when it is dispelled, the target explodes, dealing damage to all enemies within 10 yards.

Uses

• In raid situations, Living Bomb is a considerable DPS increase, and keeping it up constantly can theoretically boost DPS by up to 10%.
• Its instant casting, damage on the move and delayed boom effects are considerably useful effects that make the mage vastly more mobile and versatile.
• Its AoE benefits on raid trash clearance are considerable if it detonates; Living Bomb's final explosion is NOT subject to AoE damage caps, and can inflict horrendous damage on large groups of packed mobs (examples being phase 2 Onyxian whelps or the Frostwyrm hatchlings directly before Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel).
• In PvP, Living Bomb adds to the mage's mobile DPS a lot and prevents dispels on enemy targets in fear of the AoE damage trigger. By the way, its explosion effects are not considered as direct damage.
• Living Bomb will explode although the enemies are out of line of sight from the mage, so it's interesant in dungeons where Npcs or bosses are casting AoE damage or in PvP.

Notes

During the beta of Wrath of the Lich King, the original effect of the spell was to make the caster themselves the Living Bomb, doing AOE damage to enemies within 10 yards, with a final explosion doing more damage. The spell was criticized as the damage was very low. The spell was then changed to be a castable debuff, but again was criticized for it's low damage. A mana-burn was added to the final explosion, burning off an amount of mana equal to the damage to the target, but the spell was still criticized. Eventually the damage was increased, the mana-burn was removed, and a knock-up effect was added to the final explosion, which knocked the target up into the air. This effect was removed before the spell was released.

Patch changes

• Patch 6.0.2 (14-October-2014): Living Bomb can once again be applied to multiple targets, can be spread by Inferno Blast, and has a 1.5-second cooldown. More of its damage has been moved into its explosion.
  
• Patch 5.4.0 (10-Sep-2013): Living Bomb now deals 85% damage to players (up from 70%).
  
• Patch 5.3.0 (21-May-2013): Living Bomb's periodic damage has been increased by 121%. Its explosion damage has been reduced by 78%, but now scales with additional periodic ticks added by haste, and hits all nearby targets (up from 3).
  
• Patch 5.0.4 (28-August-2012): Updated.
  
• Patch 4.3.0 (29-Nov-2011): Living Bomb damage over time has been increased by approximately 10%, and explosion damage has been increased by approximately 120%.
  
• Patch 4.0.6 (8-Feb-2011): Living Bomb mana cost has been reduced by 22%.
  
• / Patch 4.0.1 (12-Oct-2010): This spell can be cast on a maximum of 3 targets at a time.
  
•  Hotfix (2009-08-06): "Hot Streak triggers exactly as stated in its tooltip: “2 non-periodic spell criticals in a row using Fireball, Fire Blast, Scorch, Living Bomb, or Frostfire Bolt”. Only non-periodic damage interacts with it, and only those spells listed. Periodics do not affect the streak in any way. Direct damage from the listed spells always count, for or against the streak."
  
• Patch 3.2.0 (04-Aug-2009): Can now be cast on multiple targets at the same time. Periodic critical strikes from this ability can now trigger Ignite and Hot Streak.
  
• Patch 3.0.8 (2009-01-20): Now triggers Ignite when it causes a critical strike. In addition, the final explosion will now still occur even if the mage is affected by a crowd control effect.
  
• Patch 3.0.3 (04-Nov-2008): Mana cost reduced to be the same as Arcane Explosion.. It no longer causes the caster to stand up when the final explosion occurs and it is now possible for each mage to have Living Bomb active on a target.; Living Bomb’s “explosion effect” will now be properly classified.
  
• / Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008): Added.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• Thottbot
• WoWDB