[BUG] Frost Shade Shared Immunity

[lMarcusl]

Hi, I'm currently going through the Beast of Winter DLC and I noticed that, when using Frostseeker against Frost Shades, my Cipher is doing no damage and generating no Focus. Now, Forst Shades are listed as having immunity to Freeze, while Frosteeker only does Freeze as a lash. There is no Pierce or Slash immunity listed, yet my character's hits (hits as confirmed by the UI) do no damage because "Frost Shade is immune", with the Pierce icon shown afterwards. For some reason, the game bundles the lash that's supposed to result from the bow damage with the bow damage, and the immunity to Freeze applies to both the Slash and the Pierce portion of the attack. Frost Shades do not have this behaviour with non-lashing damage, as my Fighter with Blade of the Endless Paths deals Pierce damage to the Shades as normal. It's just the Freeze and it's not just a UI error, as evidenced by 0 Focus generation. I suspect this issue will occur with other weapons and other types of lash immunities, which breaks lash weapons in some encounters.

Update: The problem does not appear to be universal. When fighting against the Dracolich in the same DLC, who is also immune to Cold, the Pierce portion of Frostseeker's damage goes through.

Edited March 3, 2019 by lMarcusl

[error3]

I had the EXACT same problem when using Dragon's Dowry against some Fire Immune enemies. It has a portion of damage as Fire, but some Fire Immune enemies would just flash "Immune" to the entire hit, even avoiding the Pierce damage.

[Boeroer]

Yes. Both weapons' damage is keyworded/labeled/tagged with "frost" resp. "fire" - even though they do different base damage. This makes them work with Secret of Rime, Scion of Flame (+1 PEN) and Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC) and PL bonus (pet Otto Starcat) and so on. They also don't put an ACC malus on an Arcane Archer's non-imbue attacks. Also see Essence Interrupter (shock keyword).

 

The downside seems to be that when immunity gets checked that first of all keywords get checked. Somebody forgot about this it seems.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Boeroer

[lMarcusl]

I don't get why it's not consistent though. I'm damaging Neriscyrlas with Frostseeker just fine with the pierce portion, where all "logic" would dictate that it would be broken there as well. Similarly, some of the spirits in the Drowned Kingdom portion of the Shattered Realm are immune to Freeze, but the Slash portion of the damage (Slash being their lowest armor rating of the three) goes through their armor without issue as it should. So it doesn't seem to be an issue of the "damage bundling" but rather the target's armor system.

Edited March 3, 2019 by lMarcusl

[MaxQuest]

I don't get why it's not consistent though. I'm damaging Neriscyrlas with Frostseeker just fine with the pierce portion, where all "logic" would dictate that it would be broken there as well.

I have took a look, and probably this is caused by the following:

- Neriscyrlas: has [immunity vs freeze damage]

- LAX02_CHA_CRE_Shade_Frost: has [immunity vs freeze damage] AND [immunity vs frost keyword]

 

What does this mean is, that this shade will ignore anything that has that keyword, and this includes Frostseeker.

 

 

 

Also I would also like to add that there also are:

- CHA_CRE_Shade_Frost: which has no frost related immunities at all

- CHA_CRE_Blight_Ice_Greater: which has no frost related immunities; but! it heals from frost damage AND has frost AR as it's lowest AR: 9 slash, 9 pierce, 7 crush, 5 frost

Edited March 3, 2019 by MaxQuest

[lMarcusl]

Huh. Well, that certainly explains the inconsistency. Boy is that a mess. So on one hand they have to have the frost keyword on items and attacks in order for them to properly benefit from +accuracy, +pen bonuses etc., on the other slapping an immunity to the keyword onto a monster reduces an item from 3 damage-type armor cleaver into a 0-damage type waste of an item slot. The keyword immunity is a neat idea but doesn't seem worth the tradeoff.

Edited March 3, 2019 by lMarcusl

[Phenomenum]

Huh. Well, that certainly explains the inconsistency. Boy is that a mess. So on one hand they have to have the frost keyword on items and attacks in order for them to properly benefit from +accuracy, +pen bonuses etc., on the other slapping an immunity to the keyword onto a monster reduces an item from 3 damage-type armor cleaver into a 0-damage type waste of an item slot. The keyword immunity is a neat idea but doesn't seem worth the tradeoff.

 

Just curious: is this something prevent you from using different weapons? Or you have just lonely Frostcaller in your inventary?

[lMarcusl]

 

Huh. Well, that certainly explains the inconsistency. Boy is that a mess. So on one hand they have to have the frost keyword on items and attacks in order for them to properly benefit from +accuracy, +pen bonuses etc., on the other slapping an immunity to the keyword onto a monster reduces an item from 3 damage-type armor cleaver into a 0-damage type waste of an item slot. The keyword immunity is a neat idea but doesn't seem worth the tradeoff.

 

Just curious: is this something prevent you from using different weapons? Or you have just lonely Frostcaller in your inventary?

 

Well, there is the small matter of not having infinite Adra Ban to upgrade additional items should the core of the character become unusable for no good reason (seriously, if you have a Pierce/Slash/Freeze damaging weapon, you shouldn't run into a problem of not being able to generate Focus. I don't care about the damage, but my resource generation turning off ain't cool with me).

 

Secondly, there is the limit of item slots. Yeah obviously, if you KNOW beforehand that your three-damage type weapon can't do damage (wat?), you'll settle for something else, even if it isn't legendary. But when you find out in the middle of a pretty tough fight that your primary weapon doesn't work and your only alternative is a defensive melee setup in your other weapon set on a squishy Ascendant, you might not reach for that option too readily.

 

Thirdly and most crucially...how is what you're asking in any way relevant? This is a bug report, not a whine post. The point isn't whether I can or cannot bypass a bug, the point is that there IS a bug to begin with that needs fixing. And it's not an issue that's exclusive to Frostseeker, it affects all (EDIT: well apparently not all) lashing  items, hell it probably affects the whole set of Shifter Wildstrikes. Imagine building a Shifter, picking up all the Wildstrike lashes for extra damage,then finding out having one of these lashes turns ALL of your other damage off against certain enemies. Cause that's what I was planning to use for one of my future parties. My next party was going to have a Fire-focused SC Paladin, with fire-lashing weapons and fire-boosting gear and powerful FoD. Now I'm reconsidering that one too cause my character will not just be weaker in terms of damage agianst fire immune enemis, No, it will just stop working completely because the Fire-immune enemy will take no damage from my Slash-damage axe because of the Fire-lash it has on it. It's about a lot more than Frostseeker.

Edited March 4, 2019 by lMarcusl

[Phenomenum]

Hm... There's about 3 or some encounters with those Frost immune shade - you don't need to stick to other weapon, just switch to another bow.

 

It's not clearly a bug, but a design oversight. Becose some Frost keywords abilities have Paralyze (Freeze) statuseffect - that's why Obsidian added Frost keyword immunuty, not just Freeze damage immunity (it will be odd to Freeze creature with Freeze damage immunity).

 

Trough i think that marking any weapons with keywords is not a best idea.

 

And it's not an issue that's exclusive to Frostseeker, it affects all lashing items, hell it probably affects the whole set of Shifter Wildstrikes.

 

Probably? You tested it? If that's so, then it's definetely needs to be fixed

Edited March 4, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Boeroer]

No. It's only a couple of weapons. Having a lash does not automatically entail the keyword.

Edited March 4, 2019 by Boeroer

[lMarcusl]

Like I said, it's not just about Frostseeker and the associated Frost Shades. It apparently affects all damage lashes, which is a good number of items and an entire Druid subclass (and one Chant). I don't think I need to list all the enemies that have some type of keyword immunity (take the whole damn poison naga class, which constitutes a good portion of SSS content).

And it is clearly a bug. X type keyword abilities not applying their status effects onto X keyword immunes is perfectly fine and works as it should, that is the whole reason for the X keyword immunity being in the game, as you say. Y damage-type keyword abilities not applying their Y-type damage, same thing, perfectly fine. But having a Y damage type invalidated because of an X keyword immunity is completely counter to the game's armor system and is obviously the result of the game's keywording mechanics applying where they shouldn't. Damage immunity should apply only to damage of that type (which already works as it should as evidenced by Neriscyrlas and other immunes taking proper damage from other damage types involved in the attack), keyword immunity should apply to non-damaging keyword effects of that type. But, clearly, here we have a keyword immunity applying to all damage, regardless of type, from an attack with that keyword. It is not working as intended, hence, a bug. What they need to do is make keyword immunity not affect damage but only status effects, since any status effects that deal damage (DoTs) will already be covered by damage immunity. Granted, that may not be an easy fix, depending on how it's coded that may require a massive overhaul of the keywording system. But there's no arguing whether this is bugged or not, it clearly is.

[lMarcusl]

No. It's only a couple of weapons. Having a lash does not automatically entail the keyword.

Really? Well, that's a load off my chest. Has anyone figured out which those are, specifically? What makes Frostseeker different from, say Magran's Favor or other lash items that don't suffer from this?

[Boeroer]

It is a bug. But it doesn't affect lashes in general because those don't add keywords automatically. Only items that are keyworded will experience this bug. Those are Dragon's Dowry, Essence Interrupter, Sun & Moon, Firebrand, Frostseeker, Kalakoth's Minor Blight and maybe some more.

 

I think those had keywords added manually because it fits their "lore" or nature - that kind of thing. Also got added because people complained that stuff like Firebrand or Frostseeker didn't profit from keyword abilities (+PL, +ACC, +PEN etc.).

Edited March 4, 2019 by Boeroer

[lMarcusl]

Hm, I get why they'd apply this to Firebrand and Minor Blights as these are abilities and not benefitting from PL would not make much sense, and since the whole of the damage consists of that given element and keyword and damage immunity usually go hand in hand, there really wouldn't be an issue there either, anyway. But the rest...I mean, having arrows imbued with some extra Freeze or Shock on top as a lash should not affect the accuracy of the whole attack, and PL, as I understand the concept, shouldn't affect it at all either way. They could just revert the keywording change on these and not much of worth would be lost. Though I guess Arcane Archers wouldn't be happy...but they're Rangers, Rangers are not happy either way XD

Edited March 4, 2019 by lMarcusl

[Phenomenum]

Really? Well, that's a load off my chest. Has anyone figured out which those are, specifically? What makes Frostseeker different from, say Magran's Favor or other lash items that don't suffer from this?

 

Really. Boeroer says right things. You just maked an assumption and start whining about this. I've digged up some data files just now.

 

Only items that are keyworded will experience this bug

 

Techically it's not an item - it's "attacks" of item, listed in attacks.gamedatabundle file. Frostseeker attack have Frost keyword, not the item itself.

 

Also i've checked some other abilities: Wildstrikes have no "attacks" just status effect so they will be deal at least physical damage (BUT Wildstrike Frenzy AoE have an attack marked by corresponding keyword). Flames of Devotion also have no "attack".

 

Basically, as Boeroer already mentioned, this bug affects on only few items. Not a "WHOLE WILDSTRIKES AND LASHES AND... AAA WE ALL GOONA DIE!!!" (yes, @lMarcusl, it's about you)

Edited March 4, 2019 by Phenomenum