[BUG]? Scroll of Chain Lighting doesn't consider level bonus damage, damage malus of bounces and number of bounces

[Chaospread]

Hi everybody, I would know if this is a bug. My PG is a 20 level Sciaman with 22 value of Arcana skill.

When I hover over Scroll of Chain Lightning damage is calculate as follow:

So there is a 65% bonus to base damage. I think it is due to arcana value, by the way, when I cast the scroll in game, I get:

 

The 65% level bonus damage disappear! Note the +13 bonus to accuracy... so does the bonus for level/arcana work only for accuracy?

Is this a bug? Does any other scroll work like that?

Or is the bonus take in consideration but not showed in the log? I suspect this because 61.6 roll is outside of range...

Another thing, the bounce: in the tooltip there a -10% malus for the bounce, but in the log the second bounce have -19% malus... so does the bounce have a cumulative -10% maluce each hit?
Ad, finally, in tooltip I read of 10 bounces, but if a bounce doesn't it are the successive bounces stopped from propagation?

Thanks to all who will help me to solve this weird behaviour

[thelee]

it's very possible that the PL adjustment is applied directly to the roll. This happens with martial abilities most obviously (the ones that say "full attack" or "primary attack"), if you empower them there's no evidence of a damage boost in the combat log calculations but you'll definitely be rolling numbers well outside what should be possible. i haven't tested scrolls extensively, but ISTR that they should be getting all the correct PL bonuses and it might be that they just get the damage adjustments directly to their rolls.

2 hours ago, Chaospread said:

Another thing, the bounce: in the tooltip there a -10% malus for the bounce, but in the log the second bounce have -19% malus... so does the bounce have a cumulative -10% maluce each hit?

it's cumulative with inversions, which is similar (but not as strong as) to combining multiplicatively. So the last bounce will be really weak. (This hurts the druid's Firebug a lot, which has a -25% malus, so after just a few bounces you're doing piddling damage.)

2 hours ago, Chaospread said:

Ad, finally, in tooltip I read of 10 bounces, but if a bounce doesn't it are the successive bounces stopped from propagation?

IIRC, all bounce effects in Deadfire continue to bounce even if one bounce misses. This is different from PoE1 where a miss would stop all bouncing (very annoying). However, abilities in Deadfire vary on whether or not they are allowed to re-affect an enemy they already hit. Chain Lightning will not bounce back to an enemy it already hit, so very often you'll get way fewer hits than you expect. (By contrast, the aforementioned Firebug will happily bounce back to foes it already hit, which helps make up for its massive malus.) If I had to hazard a guess, I would say most bounce effects re-affect an enemy, Chain Lightning is just among a handful of exceptions, probably for balance reasons (I would guess Cleansing Flame also doesn't re-affect enemies).

[Boeroer]

PL bonuses get applied to the base damage roll (that's a multiplicative dmg increase), unfortunately you cannot see them in the combat log. There you will only see the additive damage bonuses.  

The roll of 61.6 damage is well within the bounds of 54-91 which the tooltip suggested - so everything seems to be in order with this roll.   

Edited February 29 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

It seems the PL bonus is not displayed because chain lightning does 30-50 base damage and with just 10% dmg bonus it's not possible to reach 61.6 dmg.

[Chaospread]

Yes, thank you all, finally the bonus is in place but not showed.

The last doubt I keep is for bounces, I'm not sure to see always 10 bounces, maybe I'll retry and then report my logs

Edited March 1 by Chaospread
error

[thelee]

2 hours ago, Chaospread said:

The last doubt I keep is for bounces, I'm not sure to see always 10 bounces, maybe I'll retry and then report my logs

as i mentioned chain lightning will not bounce back to enemies you've already hit. So if there are three enemies:

A, B, C

and you target A, chain lightning will bounce to B and then to C and then be unable to find another target it hasn't already hit, and give up.

 

some abilities will bounce repeatedly. If you cast firebug, then what will happen is: you target A, firebug will bounce to B, and then to C, and then bounce again randomly to A or B and then again, and then again, etc until all bounces are exhausted.

 

So the number of bounces you see on the tooltip for Chain Lightning is not what you'll see in practice, unless there are lots of enemies. Some abilities bounce to enemies they've already hit, some don't, there's no real pattern, and there's no way to really know without just manually testing.

[Boeroer]

You can test the bounces and the damage mechanics of bounces (afaik bounce dmg malus gets displayed in the combat log) with the help of enemies of the type "CRE_Dummy". They cannot move and so you can put them where you like (use "SpawnPrefabAtMouse CRE_Dummy") and try chain lightning on them for maximum bounces.

Keep in mind the double inversion of dmg maluses.

Edited March 1 by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

Hi, I re-tested again and it works as @thelee said, indeed, I got a extra bounce compared to the tooltip
In my previous test maybe there was a foe outside bounce range or maybe a foe died: can it be that when a enemy die the bounces stopped to propagate?
Thanks @Boeroer for the suggestion, it is precious for following tests

[Constentin Lévine]

Maybe once the spell was launched you gain some PL ? Abilities and spells are dynamically affected by PL, this is why Eld Nary is very nice for Bellower. 

[Chaospread]

1 hour ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Maybe once the spell was launched you gain some PL ? Abilities and spells are dynamically affected by PL, this is why Eld Nary is very nice for Bellower. 

Oh, yes, it could be, as Death Godlike I maybe was near death! Good point