A character who has Break the Bell appears to be upgrading all "Staggered" afflictions on targets they hit to "Dazed."  This occurs on normal attacks, and consumes no class resources-- any enemy that is already Staggered becomes Dazed when the BtB-having character hits it.  The enemy's status description then attributes the Dazed affliction to Break the Bell. 

 

See save linked below.  Aloth (a Spellblade) has BtB.  Rekke (Brute) has Spirit Frenzy, which helps apply lots of Staggered afflictions.  They are standing near some Bad Doodz for testing.  (Yeah, I'm doing Hasongo unusually late in this run.)

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ve5jNEPY6fhYbDlxf_3cuPvkjgtxlHYd

Edited January 20, 20197 yr by Enoch

Correction:  Actually, it doesn't seem to matter whether the target was Staggered or not beforehand.  Normal attacks with 2-handed weapons are all applying Dazed.  The float-text presents a struck-through Staggered alongside the Dazed notification, which was throwing me a bit. 

Good report. I guess you are the only one who uses that ability.

Good report. I guess you are the only one who uses that ability.

Ha, maybe I am!  I picked it up on a whim to try it out, lacking anything else that looked like a must-have and knowing that I planned to re-spec Aloth around a different Grimoire in a few levels.  Now, with it acting like this, I'm torn on whether I should pull the trigger on that respec, to avoid the exploit, or keep it so that I can follow up on this report if/when they address it in a patch. 

 

I guess the responsible approach is to respec, but hang onto a save from beforehand for testing.

Edited January 22, 20197 yr by Enoch

Oh, LOLOLOLOLOL.

 

I re-spec'ed out, and the ability persisted!  It's still listed on Aloth's character sheet, even with the ability not taken when I re-leveled him.  (He did, however, lose the ability to use it as-designed, in the Guile-using abilities menu.)  And it's still working in combat, too.  In fact, I think all the benefits of Strike the Bell are happening on basic attacks, as appropriate by type-- in addition to the two-handers applying Dazed, I checked with a ranged attack, and it was getting 3 PEN more than it should. 

 

I added a second post-respec save to the Drive folder linked in the original post. 

Edited January 22, 20197 yr by Enoch