Testing various weapon and shield effects for Cipher focus and Skald phrase generation

[tackthumb]

I've been refining a Soul Blade/Skald build and decided to test an assortment of weapon and shields that have retaliation, counter-attacks, or AoE damage procs to see which of these can generate Focus for Ciphers or Phrases for Skalds (50% chance to generate a Phrase with melee critical hits). Here are some of the results:

Grave Calling – Chilling Grave generates Focus and Phrases

Akola's Apex Ward – Shark Teeth Counter does not generate Focus or Phrases

Tuotilo's Palm – Outward Spikes generates Focus and Phrases

Wintertide Bulkwark – Frostbitten Palisades does not generate Focus or Phrases

Magran's Blessing – Fire Shield generates Focus and Phrases (only when the Fire Shield is active, of course)

Eager Blade – Bounding Strikes + Kaul's Retort generate Focus but do not appear to generate Phrases. I only saw a Phrase generated if the initial weapon hit that procced Bounding Strikes also crit, and I never saw Kaul's Retort generate a Phrase after proccing a couple dozen crits with it. May require more testing or code delving.

Engoliero do Espirs – Cruel Blade generates Focus but does not appear to generate Phrases. Again, I only saw it generate a Phrase if the weapon hit that procced Ghost Blades also crit.

Whispers of the Endless Path – Offensive Parry generates Focus and Phrases

Voidwheel – Necrotic Heart generates Focus. It may or may not generate Phrases since the Necrotic Lance is conditional on a weapon crit anyway.

Karaboru – Bloody Momentum generates Focus. It may or may not generate Phrases since Bloody Momentum is conditional on a weapon crit anyway.

Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff – Soul Storm generates Focus and Phrases

St. Drogga's Skull – Flames of Retribution generates Focus. It does not appear to generate Phrases – the only time I saw a Phrase generated was if the initial weapon hit also crit.

Keeper of the Flame – Magran's Wrath does not generate Focus. It does not appear to generate Phrases – the only time I saw a Phrase generated was if the initial weapon hit also crit.

Some more observations:

It appears there is a hardcoded limit of only 1 Phrase that can be gained per attack with the Skald subclass bonus. Even when critting multiple targets with an AoE auto-attacking weapon like Whispers of the Endless Path or layering multiple Chillfogs with Grave Calling, I never saw the Phrase count jump up by more than 1 Phrase at a time. For testing methodology, I turned off chanting entirely on my Skald/Soul Blade test character so the only way to generate Phrases was through weapon critical hits during testing.

It was really hard to determine whether weapons that procced AoE damage from crits provided any Skald Phrase generation because I wasn't sure if the initial weapon crit was what created the Phrase and not crits with the AoE. If they do count, they may assist with providing more hit rolls for Skald's 50% chance to trigger. With the 1 Phrase hard limit and the conditional based on weapon crits, I can't say definitively, just based on observation, whether the weapon AoEs trigger Skald phrases.

Edited March 3 by tackthumb

[Kaylon]

Chillfog can generate 1 phrase/proc or 1 phrase/pulse?

[tackthumb]

So the Chillfogs from Grave Calling are very unusual for Skald phrase generation. I believe it is actually only 1 phrase possible per instance of Chillfog. What I observed at least was that you can potentially gain a Skald phrase from only the initial pulse. Subsequent pulses from the same Chillfog don't appear to be able to generate further phrases. This does make it less exciting as a resource generator for Skalds compared to a Cipher who can get a lot of Focus this way.

I'll test this more thoroughly later, or maybe someone else can corroborate these findings with their own testing in the meantime.

[Testlum]

You might like to know that Helm of the White Void will give a whopping +10 Accuracy to WotEP's Offensive Parry thanks to the Daze effect.

[Boeroer]

On 3/2/2024 at 8:21 AM, tackthumb said:

So the Chillfogs from Grave Calling are very unusual for Skald phrase generation. I believe it is actually only 1 phrase possible per instance of Chillfog.

That is always the case with the Skald's phrase generation from crits: he gets +1 phrase maximum for an action (spellcast, ability activation etc.), NOT attack rolls.

Offensive Parries from Whispers of the Endless Paths do generate phrases on crit iirc. I think it doesn't generate focus but I might remember that incorrectly. It's been a while since I used the weapon on a Skald or Cipher. 

[tackthumb]

I did some more testing with Grave Calling, and the behavior I mentioned above with Skald Phrase generation was consistent across repeated attempts. To be fair, it may have been too much to expect uncapped Skald Phrase generation, on top of Grave Calling's already powerful ability to create multiple Chillfogs that can also generate Focus on Ciphers.

I also added St. Drogga's Skull and Keeper of the Flame to the list of tested gear in the OP.

While I was at it, I also tested some of the armors that do retribution damage like Kahako Nihi and the High Harbiner's Robes. I wasn't really expecting them to generate Focus or Skald Phrases but wanted to see on the off chance if there was some weird implementation where the game considers it a weapon attack. Unfortunately, they don't generate either Focus or Phrases, as you would predict.

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Offensive Parries from Whispers of the Endless Paths do generate phrases on crit iirc. I think it doesn't generate focus but I might remember that incorrectly. It's been a while since I used the weapon on a Skald or Cipher. 

I can confirm that Offensive Parry will generate both Focus and Skald Phrases. I think a Soul Blade/Skald like my test character, who wanted to gain "free" and passive class resources this way from counter attacks, would actually be a fairly decent fit for Whispers of the Endless Paths. You have the +20 Accuracy/Defenses from Borrowed Instincts, which you can stack with your multiple sources of Perception and Resolve Inspirations, plus engagement slots from Tactical Meld. While you wouldn't be able to stack your deflection as high as some of the other dedicated WotEP builds, you have various abilities to debuff enemy accuracy and deflection to partly make up for it. Additionally, you have some nice synergies like penetration boosts from Hammering Thoughts and Their Champion Braved, which you can combine with enemy armor debuffs like Body Attunement or Hel Hyraf, enemy under-penetration potential with the aforementioned Body Attunement granting you armor and WotEP inflicting Daze, and the ability to direct Soul Annihilation in an AoE cone with the weapon.

[Boeroer]

Yes, Skald/Soulblade might be a nice combination with WotEP/Offensive Parry. I did Shattered Pillar/Soulblade once because of those reasons. If you feel you cannot gain enough deflection to get enough parries you can always use Nomad's Brigandine or Gipon Prudensco with their immunity to disengagement attacks. That will turn all disengagement atacks against you into misses which will get parried then. That way you can be a very mobile melee character (no fear of disengagment attacks, always best position for cone AoEs and so on) and profit from the parries on top.

[tackthumb]

This is off-topic, but I wanted to share a very interesting interaction I ran into during my tests with Grave Calling. While attacking a Many Lives skeleton summon to trigger Chillfogs from Grave Calling, I happened to have another Chanter nearby who was using the Mith Fyr chant. I noticed that a skeleton affected by the Mith Fyr chant was completely invulnerable to weapon damage from Grave Calling; the combat log would state that the attack was cancelled out even if the hit landed. This is due to the interaction between Mith Fyr's Fire keyword and Grave Calling's Frost keyword, and them being counters to each other.

This got me wondering, though, if it would be somehow possible to cheese this and render the party invulnerable to weapon attacks by forcing a keyword onto enemy attacks and then applying a counter keyword to the party. My first thought was to cast Moonwell on the party, which is Water keyworded. I'm sure many people have noticed how it not only heals but also nullifies incoming damage from Fire spells. Now, the tricky part was finding a way of applying a Fire keyword onto enemies because it couldn't just be a direct Fire damage spell which would just harm the target, but rather some kind of buff or effect that would make the Fire keyword "stick" onto enemies. I first tried a Berserker/Chanter to see if I could deliberately Confuse myself with Berserker Frenzy and perhaps apply Mith Fyr to enemies that way. Unfortunately, the positive chant effect of Mith Fyr didn't get applied to enemies even while the caster was confused. I next tried it with a Paladin/Berserker, again using Berserker Frenzy to Confuse myself and using Paladin's Shared Flames attack. Sure enough, I was able to grant Shared Flames to enemies while confused and put them under the effect of the Fire keyword. However, when enemies with Shared Flames attacked my party who were under the effect of Moonwell, their damage still went through.

I think I figured out why Mith Fyr/Grave Calling counters each other out while Shared Flames/Moonwell doesn't, and it has to do with Grave Calling and how its elemental damage and keyword is coded. Though it appears to be an elemental lash similar to Shared Flames, Grave Calling's freeze lash is inherent to the weapon which makes even its auto-attacks Frost keyworded. It's probably why it and other elemental weapons like Thundercrack Pistol, which has a similar Shock lash, are able to be used by Arcane Archers without suffering the subclass penalty when auto-attacking. So you'll see Moonwell countering Fire keyworded abilities, but it's not going to be able to counter auto-attacks like my cheese idea unless you were somehow able to grant enemies inherently Fire keyworded weapons. If only spells like Firebrand weren't self-targeted!

Just thought I'd share this cheese idea for keyword counters in the hopes someone more clever than me can figure out a way to make it work.

[Boeroer]

Yes, applying elemental lashes to attacks doesn't give them any keyword. Turning Wheel, Lighting Strikes, Shared Flames, Wildstrike etc. don't work like that. They don't alter the keywords of the underlying attack but only add an additional layer of elemental damage. 

Mith Fyr's lash also doesn't do this. So even if a confused Chanter could apply Mith Fyr to enemies their attack would still not be keyworded with fire. Instead, Mith Fyr acts as "benefical effect" on the enemy and that effect has the keyword. And because the enemy would carry that keyword and gets hit by a water or frost attack (properly keyworded) they won't get harmed (as it happened with your skeletons vs. Grave Calling). But the nature of their attacks against you won't have changed at all.  

I don't know any way how you could put a blanket keyword over all enemies' attacks in order to achieve what you described above. You cannot do it with your party's attacks either. There's no way to alter the keywords of your party's attacks during an encounter. At least I cannot see one. 

You are right that with some of the elementally themed weapons such as Dragon's Dowry, Essence Interrupter, Frostseeker and so on the attacks themselves are keyworded "manually" (no matter which damagve type is actually used).

Some abilities are also keyworded explicitly with an element (or more than one). Spells are most obvious, but also stuff like Flames of Devotion (fire - Bleak Walkers' version also get the addititonal corrode keyword because of Black Flames). In case of fire those will get countered by stuff like Moonwell.

Fun fact: Tekehu is immune to fire - that also means that if he gets buffed with Mith Fyr his immunity will remove that buff. So: no Mith Fyr lash for Tekehu.   

 

Edited March 5 by Boeroer