[Mechanics/small PSA] Boar spiritshift DoT

[thelee]

(Apologies if people already knew this, but at least my own guide and the wikis are wrong on this)

I was just trying to square some oddities I found with some effects while doing a guide update, and pretty much every major source has been wrong about the spiritshift boar DoT since the beginning. I think it started with MaxQuest's aggregated spiritshift info from the backer beta (not his fault, it was speculation based on some shortly observed data; it may have even been accurate then but it was changed and no one bothered to look closely again). Most everyone (including myself) repeats or understands that the boar spiritshift damage over time is 4 raw damage per tick, and that the tooltip is buggy and shows 0 instead.

This is wrong. The reason why the tooltip appears to be 0 is because it actually uses a rarely seen effect, where the base effect is just used for its duration and the "real" effect is triggered by damage done ("ApplyStatusEffectToEnemyByDamageDealt"). It makes sense why OBS wouldn't/couldn't fix this tooltip, because it's conditional on damage done, so it's a little more complicated than plugging in the real number (which many people thought was 4).

The boar DoT is actually 10% of actual damage dealt per tick, for 6s (adjusted for intellect). It stacks, too.

On the one hand, this means the boar DoT is much much worse for dealing with penetration/immunity issues, because it won't help you (as the original understanding of the boar dot was) in fights where you're not doing much damage with your claws.

On the other hand, this means the boar DoT is *extremely* good as an additional damage bonus in normal fights. At base intellect, because it stacks you essentially get a 30% raw lash (over time; 10% lash on initial application, plus two more ticks). Every point of intellect above 10 effectively adds 1.5% to this lash (over time). Because it's based on damage done, it should be inclusive of any wildstrike lashes, making it multiplicative of a multiplicative effect. So as an example, a level 20 spiritshift boar with modest 15 strength and modest 15 intellect and greater wildstrike will do 13-20 +75% base damage, plus a +25% multiplicative elemental lash, plus a further 37.5% raw DoT lash over 7.5s.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by thelee

[thelee]

Note that most other similar effect I can think of is ApplyOverTime and is therefore not as good as this due to the typical numbers involved. The bleeding modal for axes is basically the same thing as the boar dot though (down to the same %age, but a much longer duration at the cost of +50% recovery)

Edited November 3, 2020 by thelee

[thelee]

interestingly, because the way DoT stacking works (ticking the entire stack immediately upon a new stack and refreshing the tick interval) and because by default spiritshift forms dual-wield their weapon (making attacks possible to be faster than the 3s dot tack), it is highly likely that under sustained attacks the DoT functions almost identically to a straight-up 30-40% raw lash (depends on how many stacks you can keep sustained with your intellect and enemy resolve), which is pretty good (especially since it would be multiplicative of any existing lash)

Edited November 3, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

36 minutes ago, thelee said:

So as an example, a level 20 spiritshift boar with modest 15 strength and modest 15 intellect and greater wildstrike will do 13-20 +75% base damage, plus a +25% multiplicative elemental lash, plus a further 37.5% raw DoT lash over 7.5s.

 

So he will do ~50 dmg? Sweet.

Since lashes work extremely well with PL scaling and additive dmg bonuses I guess a Boar/Rogue should be great. But if the raw lash also takes elemental lashes into account then maybe a Helwalker/Boar with Turning Wheel and Lightning Strikes would be even better? Not only because of the dual lashes but also because of the +10 INT which directly translates to higher/longer raw lash?  

[thelee]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Since lashes work extremely well with PL scaling and additive dmg bonuses I guess a Boar/Rogue should be great.

i actually immediately started thinking of a shifter/streetfighter (or shifter/trickster + scordeo's for extra hardiness) build after seeing this in action. deathblows + streefighter dmg + streetfighter -50% recovery should mean a pretty hefty sustained raw dot when in boar form.

 

but yeah, the monk should also be great. monk: never a bad choice.

Edited November 3, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Holy moly the Helwalker/Boar shifts for over 30 secs and the raw DoT lash lasts for over 13 secs. Also Heartbeat Drumming was doing some procs (picked Lightning Strikes so lesser chance of crit-chaining). But I totally forgot how good Taste of the Hunt with maxed INT and MIG from Helwalker is. Jeez it applies its forst tick with the attack which already leads to great dmg right away but then ticks for ~30 raw every 3 secs, lasts nearly 30 secs (that's 300 dmg yo!) and naturally stacks with the boar lash. ONE strike with Taste of the Hunt as Boar with 30 INT/MIG almost kills a CRE_Dummy. And it's not even a Full Attack...

Streetfighter is pretty crazy, too. But I encountered something weird: Ring the Bell's raw dmg doesn't apply.  Toxic Strike and the rest does. I suspect that the claw weapons ar not recognized as "proper" one-handed weapons by Ring the Bell or something?

 

 

[dgray62]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Holy moly the Helwalker/Boar shifts for over 30 secs and the raw DoT lash lasts for over 13 secs. Also Heartbeat Drumming was doing some procs (picked Lightning Strikes so lesser chance of crit-chaining). But I totally forgot how good Taste of the Hunt with maxed INT and MIG from Helwalker is. Jeez it applies its forst tick with the attack which already leads to great dmg right away but then ticks for ~30 raw every 3 secs, lasts nearly 30 secs (that's 300 dmg yo!) and naturally stacks with the boar lash. ONE strike with Taste of the Hunt as Boar with 30 INT/MIG almost kills a CRE_Dummy. And it's not even a Full Attack...

I wish that shifters could cast Taste of the Hunt while in boar form! This might be a case where boar helwalker/ancient would be better than helwalker/shifter. Cast a few DoT spells, shift, then cast Taste of the Hunt once or twice as needed.

Edited November 3, 2020 by dgray62
New idea added.

[AndreaColombo]

By the by, do you know whether elemental talents apply to Wild Strike attacks?

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, AndreaColombo said:

By the by, do you know whether elemental talents apply to Wild Strike attacks?

No, except spirit frenzy AoE. The attacks are not elemental tagged.
And for this, it might even require Community Patch.

By the way, how do you feel about Shift duration not scaling with PL ? It's a bit weird that's it is the only activable duration effect that does not scale with PL.

Edited November 4, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

By the way, how do you feel about Shift duration not scaling with PL ? It's a bit weird that's it is the only activable duration effect that does not scale with PL.

I think that it's not cool. 

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I think that it's not cool. 

That's all the legitimacy I need for putting it on my TO DO list.

Edited November 4, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

 

 

[thelee]

In the backer beta it used to PL scale. So it was a deliberate decision to make spirit shift not scale, which is odd from a balancing perspective, especially since it hurts the boar form (its HoT and DoT don’t scale because they are on the spiritshift) but leaves bear and cat forms fine (their abilities are separately granted and DO appear to scale at last check).

[Boeroer]

Iirc Spiritshift was very potent in the beta because the lashes of Wildstrike were higher (same with Flames of Devotion, Mith Fyr and other lashes). So maybe they first nerfed the PL scaling and later also all the lashes but forgot to un-nerf the missing PL scaling? Maybe... no idea...

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

In the backer beta it used to PL scale. So it was a deliberate decision to make spirit shift not scale, which is odd from a balancing perspective, especially since it hurts the boar form (its HoT and DoT don’t scale because they are on the spiritshift) but leaves bear and cat forms fine (their abilities are separately granted and DO appear to scale at last check).

Wolf and Stag ? No one cares about them 

Good point. I need to be careful and avoid adding undue scaling. Boar HoT and DoT should not become better (they are passive like effect).

[dgray62]

Does Hylea's talons work with spiritshift attacks? The 5% slash lash and raw damage DOT works with unarmed strikes, which are considered to be "melee weapons," but I wasn't sure about wildstrike attacks. If so, the additional 5% slash damage and the stacking raw DOT would be a very nice addition. Also a great way to get wounds for the Helwalker multiclass.

[dgray62]

39 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Wolf and Stag ? No one cares about them 

Good point. I need to be careful and avoid adding undue scaling. Boar HoT and DoT should not become better (they are passive like effect).

Wolf is good for the one/encounter knockdown. The increased stride is good too; I like wolf for racing across the battlefield at the start to get to the squishy caster. Would be even better (and more balanced vis-a-vis boar, cat and bear) if it had a disengagement attack defense as well. Stag would be much better if the carnage was passive, like the boar's healing and wounding, rather than an active ability. If it did, for shifters it and bear would be the natural choices when mobbed at the start of battle, while boar would be ideal for bosses or finishing off tough foes at the end of battle.

[Boeroer]

Community Patch turns the Stag's ability into a passive Carnage effect like Barbarian's (but a bit weaker). It stacks with Barb's Carnage. 

[dgray62]

Thanks, Boeroer.

[thelee]

3 hours ago, dgray62 said:

 Stag would be much better if the carnage was passive, like the boar's healing and wounding, rather than an active ability

has anything changed or is it still a once/encounter ability? because it was extremely lame and borderline pointless when that was the case

Edited November 4, 2020 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Still extremely lame and borderless pointless in unmodded game. 

[Elric Galad]

13 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Wolf is good for the one/encounter knockdown. The increased stride is good too; I like wolf for racing across the battlefield at the start to get to the squishy caster. Would be even better (and more balanced vis-a-vis boar, cat and bear) if it had a disengagement attack defense as well. Stag would be much better if the carnage was passive, like the boar's healing and wounding, rather than an active ability. If it did, for shifters it and bear would be the natural choices when mobbed at the start of battle, while boar would be ideal for bosses or finishing off tough foes at the end of battle.

For your information or feedback, what I'm planning to do with my Balance Polishing Mod :

1) Keep stag carnage from CP and set it to same value as Barbarian's. Carnage isn't so strong in PoE2, so no need to let an inferior version.
Oh, in PoE1, Stag Carnage + Avenging Storm was a hilarious mob cleaner (even once per rest).
Set the bonus defense to from +7 / +10 like antelope pet.
This would make Stag the optimal semi-offensive choice vs mobs.

2) Set Wolf bonus speed to +50% (Wiz can get +100% from a mere lvl 1 spell...)
Set Knockdown number to 3 (as a lvl 1 fighter).
That would emphasize Wolf as an assassin/disruptor. Knockdown also adds accuracy and damages with high PL.

3) Make Spiritshift duration increase with PL.

4) Wildstrike has always felt weird to me.
2 talent points is costly just to have your 15s duration weapons basically as good as your usual endgame weapons.
I wanted to add a bit of utility to it (since increasing DPS could be OP with cat or boar forms).
My plan is to add +1 PL to the related element (Fire, Ice/Water, Electricity, Acid/Decay), cumulative for the fist 2 talents (for a total of +2). This would work as an alternate caster stick (since you loose weapon/armor while shifted, this won't really provide bigger benefit than Magran's Axe, Deltro's Cage, Chromoprismatic, Sun&Moon, etc...).
The advantages of this design would be the following :
- Emphasize Spiritshift as a key ability of druids
- Indirect Buff to Fury (who looses their caster sticks while shifted)
- Indirect nerf to Shifter. Shifter basically don't have true drawback since the shift is cancellable and you get a bunch of them. Note that there are still a couple of non-spell abilities from multiclass martials that would synergize with this.
- Provide support to Decay Druid

Edited November 5, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

- Indirect Buff to Fury (who looses their caster sticks while shifted)
 

You mean Furies lose their passive of +1 PEN and +20% range with elemental spells once they use Spiritshift? Since when is that?

[Elric Galad]

9 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

You mean Furies lose their passive of +1 PEN and +20% range with elemental spells once they use Spiritshift? Since when is that?

Oh, insufficient testing + misinterpretation from my part ?
Anyway the wiki is as wrong as me and lists it as a Spiritshift bonus

https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/Druid

Edited November 5, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

It always works and is not connected to the Spiritshift. This makes SC Fury an excellent elemental nuker: Great Maelstrom with Scion of Flame and Heart of the Storm (and with CP also Secrets of Rime) is absolutely devastating because you gain +3(+4 CP) PEN for the shocking/burning part of the procs; and +1 (+2 with CP) on the freezing part - they seem to be completely separated effects but still: ouch. Normal hit at PL9 has 17 PEN, crits do have 25.5.  Overpenetration is not common for spells, but here it happens quite often. 

The wiki doesn't list it as a Spiritshift bonus, it took the wording 1:1 from the game:

Those are separate bonuses. One can misinterpret it if those bonuses are put into one single line of text (like the wiki did) though - and it also really doesn't help that it's structured like:

- Spiritshift stuff
- general stuff
- further Spiritshift stuff
- spells

Would be less confusing if the passive came fist and spiritshift stuff after. 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Boeroer