1.05 Cipher: How do these powers work?

[qweqwe]

I added the Grieving Mother to my group but I don't understand some of her powers.

- Antipathetic Field and Ectophysic Echo are both described as Foe beam, but the former seems to have friendly fire, while the latter doesn't. Is that right?

- When Phantom Foes hits, it seems to always give Frightened status, but the Flanked status seems... random? In the combat log it shows that my enemies got Flanked & Frightened, but when I check their buffs/debuffs, some of them don't always have the Flanked icon.

- Does Recall Agony work in a similar way to Deep Wounds?

- Are the damage ticks of Soul Ignition affected by Damage Reduction?

[Raven Darkholme]

Echo also ghas friendly fire. But you target an ally (who doesn't get damaged) instead of a foe. Phantom Foes has different attacks and the enemies can roll a save vs each one.

Recall Agony works as damage over time, yes but your target has to have taken damage for it to apply.

Yes Soul Ignition sadly doesn't do raw damage so DR applies.

[qweqwe]

Echo also ghas friendly fire. But you target an ally (who doesn't get damaged) instead of a foe. Phantom Foes has different attacks and the enemies can roll a save vs each one.

Recall Agony works as damage over time, yes but your target has to have taken damage for it to apply.

Yes Soul Ignition sadly doesn't do raw damage so DR applies.

I have tested Ectophysic Echo over and over and it seems that the power doesn't affect my allies. What am I doing wrong?

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Echo also ghas friendly fire. But you target an ally (who doesn't get damaged) instead of a foe. Phantom Foes has different attacks and the enemies can roll a save vs each one.

Recall Agony works as damage over time, yes but your target has to have taken damage for it to apply.

Yes Soul Ignition sadly doesn't do raw damage so DR applies.

I have tested Ectophysic Echo over and over and it seems that the power doesn't affect my allies. What am I doing wrong?

 

Get your allies where the real damage is between your cipher and the ally you cast the spell on.

[JONNIN]

 

 

I have tested Ectophysic Echo over and over and it seems that the power doesn't affect my allies. What am I doing wrong?

 

 

It is a strange skill.  There is another one that is high single target damage but targets an ally.   Understand: these are ATTACKS that DAMAGE the enemy, but they TARGET a friendly player and from there leap or aoe or beam or whatever to hit the enemy.   Ecto targets a friendly, and forms a beam between you and your ally, and from there, it zaps anything in between (including other friendly.... ).    This skill is difficullt to use, to say the least. 

 

Phantom should drop flanked regularly.   But the save for flanked may be easier than the other effects, I do not know off the top of my head.

 

FWIW The rank 2 spell that does stuck & paralysis is one of the strongest -- it costs little and does much, esp if your int is high enough to make it a large aoe. 

[qweqwe]

Have you guys actually tested these spells or are you just trusting what the description says? I'm going to upload a video soon showing that Ecto doesn't damage my allies.

 

EDIT: And yes I understand that what causes the damage is the BEAM

Edited May 11, 2015 by qweqwe

[Raven Darkholme]

I tested it plenty before 1.05 patch. Mybe there was a stealth change which would make the spell extremely good imo.

[qweqwe]

Ok, here is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASpwkgYtUgE

 

Antipathetic Field damages anything in it's path, while Ectophysic Echo damages only my enemies

 

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, if the description of Antipathetic Field is incorrect, or if Echo is bugged

Edited May 11, 2015 by qweqwe

[Raven Darkholme]

Yeah just tested it myself. Here goes your best lowlevel spell, spam it without consequences and watch enemies melt.

[MadDemiurg]

Maybe they stealthbuffed it for 1.05. It definitely damaged allies in 1.04. if yes, lol.

[adaxe]

Maybe they stealthbuffed it for 1.05. It definitely damaged allies in 1.04. if yes, lol.

I am pretty sure that Ectophysic Echo didn't damage allies in 1.04.

[Raven Darkholme]

Maybe they stealthbuffed it for 1.05. It definitely damaged allies in 1.04. if yes, lol.

Lol indeed as if it wasn't awesome enough before.

Could it be they stealthnerfed the accuracy on many cipher powers in 1.05? I see so many +5s and I'm pretty sure it was mostly +10 before...

[MadDemiurg]

 

Maybe they stealthbuffed it for 1.05. It definitely damaged allies in 1.04. if yes, lol.

Lol indeed as if it wasn't awesome enough before.

Could it be they stealthnerfed the accuracy on many cipher powers in 1.05? I see so many +5s and I'm pretty sure it was mostly +10 before...

 

No, most aoe powers had +5, and semi aoe or single target +10. I can't say for all spells, but it doesn't seem to be changed much overall.

[JONNIN]

I have not tested it in a while because I prefer other spells on my cipher to the weak early damage dealers.  It was hitting the friendly toons, last time I tried it.  I much prefer the aoe blind and low level charm, or if I did build a damage themed low level cipher, the cone RAW damage attack is easier to control, hits more stuff, and hits hard.  

 

Honestly my latest ciphers have followed a different path.  I stack up on skills to buff the weapon and soul whip effect to produce a hard hitting ranged character that does damage the old fashioned way between launching the potent debuffs.   The cost of spells going up as they increase in power, I find that I launch a number of rank 2 paralysis/stuck attacks as my core ability on the class, and use the others as necessary (often, a puppet or similar charm on anything that got to the back to bother the casters, charmed enemy obligingly walk back to the front lines before turning red again)  for additional debuffing or to control the combat.  

 

It has been a while since I tried a pure damage cipher, trying to actually kill with its spells.  Silent scream is a good nuke at higher levels, I use that one from time to time.

Edited May 11, 2015 by JONNIN

[qweqwe]

I have not tested it in a while because I prefer other spells on my cipher to the weak early damage dealers. 

Give this a read.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to know if the spells were behaving as intended and the answer is obvious "no".

 

I believe that Echo was supposed to behave like the Wizard's Ray of Fire, so I guess I'm just skipping both spells for this playthrough.

Edited May 11, 2015 by qweqwe

[Raven Darkholme]

Yeah its not weak by any means it was strong when it still hit your group not its nearly beyond comparison for the level you get it.

[durbal]

It never hit allies.

[MadDemiurg]

I'm pretty sure it did for me.

Edited May 11, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[Raven Darkholme]

Yep for me too.

[Haplok]

Well, it never had friendly fire for me. And its not particularly difficult to set up. Particularly if you cast it on an ally who can flank enemies, like, say, a chanter. Was my main spell at mid-levels. Later on I would use the faster Lance more (which frequently crits for over 100 damage).

[Kaigen42]

My 2 coppers:

 

Antipathetic Beam has always had friendly fire for me, Ectopsychic Echo has never had friendly fire for me (playing since 1.03).

 

I've seen the same bug with Phantom Foes, and I'm not sure what the cause is.

 

I haven't tested Recall Agony; it might be a good question to take to peddroelm's thread. I'm assuming you're wondering whether each hit creates a new DoT that overwrites the previous one?

 

The damage ticks of Soul Ignition are affected by DR, but they only appear to consider 25% of the opponent's DR like lash effects. In my testing, the damage per tick against a 4 DR target as opposed to a 14 DR target was 17 vs. 14.

[mahe4]

phantom foes, or more like the whole flanking system is bugged.

even if you normally flank, the flanking status sometimes flickers on and off.

and i think the same problem appears with phantom foes, but there is no activator (like a flanking partymember) to turn it back on, after it fell off.