Two questions about two cipher spells

[omgFIREBALLS]

Pain Link: By description, it sounds reasonably awesome, but it's difficult to judge its effectiveness since it doesn't appear in the combat log. So exactly how does it work? If someone hits a pain linked character for 40 damage, they take 10 damage in return? No accuracy or armor penetration involved? Is it raw damage?

 

Pain Block: Is the Robust healing amplified by

a) The cipher's stats and gear?

b) The target's stats and gear?

c) Nothing?

[MaxQuest]

1). Yes, an enemy who hits an ally affected by Pain Link, would take 25% of dealt damage back as raw damage. And from what I can tell from statuseffects.gamedatabundle it doesn't go through attack resolution. The enemy just instantly gets damaged back.

Btw:

- I wouldn't be surprised if those 25% are further affected by Cipher's MIG. And also by whatever damage amplification is on the enemy.

- The damage is not 'reflected'. It is rather 'shared'. As the buffed ally still takes same amount of damage while under Pain Link, as if he would otherwise.

- Only the damage that goes through attack resolution can be 'shared'.

- Iirc, Pain Link worked differently in PoE1. It was: whenever you take damage, deal 25% of it to each nearby enemy. So it was much stronger when having multiple enemies in melee; but weaker vs a single enemy that is at range.

 

2). It should be the a). Just like paladin's stats/gear affect his Greater Lay on Hands effectiveness, same thing goes with Pain Block.

 

P.S. That said, I still haven't found optimal uses for those two powers.

1). Pain Link requires you to take a lot of damage, in order for Pain Link to be worth it. Ideally your hp + healing taken should be x4 higher than enemy hp + healing taken.

2). Pain Block asks for high MIG and INT, but doesn't care for cipher's accuracy/perception. So it would be nice on a lifegiver/psion or psion of eothas/wael offtank. But only if psion focus generation wasn't paused by incoming damage.

Edited April 14, 2019 by MaxQuest

[omgFIREBALLS]

After all this time wondering, it finally occurred to me to just mouseover the Robust healing. It says might +3%, the cipher has 11 might, the target has way more. Derp.

 

That being said, I love Pain Block for my outlast setups. Even without pumping might, it's still bye-bye to constitution afflictions, and a decent amount of healing that is semi-infinitely available.

Edited April 14, 2019 by omgFIREBALLS

[Kaylon]

I suppose the 25% is calculated from the damage taken and not from the initial damage of the enemy (before reductions).

[Ensign]

Also a big Pain Block fan here on pretty much any Cipher. The nature of the class is to spam whichever power is most relevant, and the ability to transition into a spot healer on demand for the cost of a single ability point is really strong. You don't need to build around it as a Cipher healer or whatnot, let someone else do the heavy lifting and use it as a complement as necessary.