PSA: hazard effects are *super* good on TB mode

[thelee]

I've been giving TB mode a more serious try thanks to @Noqn's beta S4 mod, and I discovered an interesting thing that I hadn't known before:

1. many effects that do periodic damage have their damage multiplied to simulate 6 seconds of time passing as one "round"
2. hazard effects tick like every second (it's why their damage numbers frequently look so low), so their damage gets 6x-ed
3. most persistent aoe effects only trigger on specific initiative points each round. (This makes it really easy to run in and out of e.g. a tanglefoot or a chill fog without getting hit. lucky for humans, enemy AI is too dumb to exploit AoEs like this.)
4. TB mode hazard effects, however, trigger both on initiative but also while moving into or through it.

all these points combined, especially with #4, means that every "unit" of movement in or through a hazard effect on TB mode triggers the 6x-ed damage. If you can kite enemies, knock them around, terrify them, or somehow just get them to move around, you can do a sick amount of damage with hazard effects.

I discovered this with Wall of Thorns - ordinarily does 4-5 damage per hit on RTwP - it's 6x-ed to 24-30 on TB mode. I had hobbled enemies stumbling through it wracking up tens of damage with every "unit" of movement, not to mention the additional "tick" of 24-30 damage just from the once/round effect. Easily did hundreds upon hundreds of damage in one fight alone.

There's not a lot of persistent hazard effects in the game, but I anticipate these all become damage kings on TB mode:

• Wall of Thorns
• Wall of Flame
• Wall of Force
• Wall of Draining <-no damage, but probably lots of drain
• Wall of Many Colors <- not sure if damage gets 6x due to the way this is implemented, but enemies do trigger the color effects a lot

LMK if I missed anything.

Interestingly, in the tooltips, the damage isn't 6x-ed for hazard effects like other durational things, so it must be a dynamic adjustment done when someone is hit. Given that movement/trigger damage is unintentionally 6x-ed, I wonder if priest seals (electric and searing) also get 6x-ed despite having no duration?

Edited September 12, 2022 by thelee