Bittercut, Corrosive Lash and Spirit of Decay

[Kaylon]

Didn't test lashes specifically but they should work like always did - ie the lash damage is multiplied by 1.2 if you have the corresponding elemental talent.

[Boeroer]

Ok, so Spirit of Decay boosts your damage in multiple ways: it raises your weapon damage by 20% - this also causes the lashes to do more damage - which then also get boosted by Spirit of Decay/Scion of Flame. Maybe this explains the high numbers when you use FoD with dual Bittercuts + Scion of Flame + Spirit of Decay...?

[Kaylon]

Ok, so Spirit of Decay boosts your damage in multiple ways: it raises your weapon damage by 20% - this also causes the lashes to do more damage - which then also get boosted by Spirit of Decay/Scion of Flame. Maybe this explains the high numbers when you use FoD with dual Bittercuts + Scion of Flame + Spirit of Decay...?

The damage boost for the weapon is the same as if you were using Savage Attack - for a sabre it's 3.2 more dmg on average and the lashes will do also 0.6 more dmg - for less than 4 dmg gain overall...

[Braven]

Assuming the lashes work as Boeroer suggested.  A FoD attack should add 150% (125% in lashes * 1.2) more damage than a regular attack of the same hit quality.  If a regular hit does 50 damage, than FoD should be 125 damage.

 

A monk with optimal swift-strike torments reach, who would otherwise hit for 50 damage (same damage upgrades as paladin) would do:  50 + 8 (torments reach additive bonus) * 114% (95% in lashes * 1.2) = 124.12 damage

 

If I am understanding the mechanics correctly, (optimal) monk has nearly the same potential damage output as paladin's FoD, though it takes longer to setup and doesn't have the big accuracy bonus.  There is also much to be said about killing the dangerous enemy immediately instead of waiting for 10 wounds.  However, in a hypothetical long fight in which two FoD is not enough, the monk will do better since they can perform "unlimited" monster attacks and also provide a bit of AOE with torment reach also.  Overall, I think Paladin has it best but monk could be interesting for solo.

 

Talent-wise, the monk needs 4 (lightning swift attacks, fire bonus, shock bonus, corrode bonus), while the paladin also needs 4 (intense flames, remember the fields, corrode bonus).

 

--

UPDATE:  The rogues sadly come in third for single attack damage, even if I give them backstab and deathblows, because they can only get a 25% lash.  If savage attack actually stacked with their class ability or they could actually backstab properly with activated abilities, it might be a different story.  On the plus side they do have great accuracy, need less talents, and have a lot of activated full attacks that can be spammed from the start.  On the downside, they are much squishier and performing multiple full attacks use up most of their class abilities.

 

Normal: 50

Sneak: 8

Deathblows: 16

backstab: 24

 

= 122.5 Damage with lash  (97.5 damage without backstab and instead using one of their 25% damage boosted full-attacks with deathblows)

Edited April 18, 2016 by Braven

[Kaylon]

I don't understand from where you get your numbers. You have (50%FoD+25%talent+25%weapon)*1.2=120% If you do 50 physical dmg then you'll do another 60 elemental damage before DR - ie 110dmg overall.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Kaylon

[Braven]

You are missing a lash.  Paladins can get lashes in these ways:

 

50%  (base FoD)

25% (intense flames talent all paladins can take)

25% (bleak walker specific talent)

25% (weapon enchant)

 

That is 125% lashes * 1.2 = 150%    

 

--

Side Note

 

If spirit of decay is just a 20% additive bonus, then the damage is not much different than sabers with annihilation, like double Purgatories, since you going to be landing critical hits often with the kind of build using dual sabers; particularly paladins since they have huge accuracy bonuses.  Granted, the enemies that actually matter are generally not getting critically hit often and probably have a higher slash DR, so in that respect Bittercut is superior.

 

The difference maker, though, is that Purgatory comes with a huge healing bonus when combined with monster lash (at least if lashes count toward the endurance drain... I am not sure).  In theory, it should restore 50 endurance per full attack (not considering DR).  Add in, say, a 60% heal multiplier survival bonus and we are talking 80 endurance healed.  Could even go higher with 25% item bonus.  For a monk, that seems like a much better deal than dual bittercuts since they will want a big heal after taking 10 wounds (80 damage) to power up.  They also don't have a corrode lash that benefits from spirit of decay anyways and is one less wasted talent.  With that kind of healing you probably don't need Veteran's recovery or Shod-In-Faith boots anymore allowing for more equipment options to fill in the void. 

 

For the truly power-hungry, you could instead use the wax with the fireball saber for 6 fireballs in a single weapon slot.  9 fireballs per battle possible with only 2 weapon slots.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Braven

[Blunderboss]

Fireballs sabre is realy underwhelming on paladin after you tried it with 2x Bittercuts , damage from FoD is like twice lower and fireballs dont do any damage on upscalled PoTD enemies and you get interrupted all the time if u try to cast them in melee .

AoE Fire Damage paladin might be fun build but its not better than 2x Bittercut 

It seems that currently Spirit of Decay boosts bittercuts base damage by 1.2 first before any lashes thus making any future lashes stronger , and then you get another boost on your 2 Corrosive Lashes , and a boost on FoD from Scion of Flame ( and the FoD damage comes from already boosted Bittercut ). This really makes a difference on FoD numbers .

Monsterlash is real and its scarry

Edited April 18, 2016 by Blunderboss

[Elric Galad]

Did Damage modifiers get changed by the same guy that designed attack speed ?

Edited April 18, 2016 by Elric Galad

[Braven]

Fireballs sabre is realy underwhelming on paladin after you tried it with 2x Bittercuts , damage from FoD is like twice lower and fireballs dont do any damage on upscalled PoTD enemies and you get interrupted all the time if u try to cast them in melee .

AoE Fire Damage paladin might be fun build but its not better than 2x Bittercut 

It seems that currently Spirit of Decay boosts bittercuts base damage by 1.2 first before any lashes thus making any future lashes stronger , and then you get another boost on your 2 Corrosive Lashes , and a boost on FoD from Scion of Flame ( and the FoD damage comes from already boosted Bittercut ). This really makes a difference on FoD numbers .

Monsterlash is real and its scarry

 

The thing is, though, if you land a "monster lash" critical with Resolution or Purgatory they should actually do more damage than bittercut (if Kaylon's testing is accurate and it provides a normal, additive bonus instead of a multiplier to all weapon damage).  You can still take the spirit of decay and scion of fire talents to boost the lashes, like you did with 2xBittercut.  If you only graze/hit, or fight a high slash DR enemy, Bittercut will do a little better in that situation since purgatory/resolution's advantage is with critical hits only.

 

Annihilation enchant (on patch 3.02) adds a 50% damage modifier which is over twice Bittercut's 20% spirit of decay bonus.  If Bittercut performs better than those sabers (when landing a critical hit), then something else must be going on with the math that we are missing.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Braven

[Blunderboss]

 

Fireballs sabre is realy underwhelming on paladin after you tried it with 2x Bittercuts , damage from FoD is like twice lower and fireballs dont do any damage on upscalled PoTD enemies and you get interrupted all the time if u try to cast them in melee .

AoE Fire Damage paladin might be fun build but its not better than 2x Bittercut 

It seems that currently Spirit of Decay boosts bittercuts base damage by 1.2 first before any lashes thus making any future lashes stronger , and then you get another boost on your 2 Corrosive Lashes , and a boost on FoD from Scion of Flame ( and the FoD damage comes from already boosted Bittercut ). This really makes a difference on FoD numbers .

Monsterlash is real and its scarry

 

The thing is, though, if you land a "monster lash" critical with Resolution or Purgatory they should actually do more damage than bittercut (if Kaylon's testing is accurate and it provides a normal, additive bonus instead of a multiplier to all weapon damage).  You can still take the spirit of decay and scion of fire talents to boost the lashes, like you did with 2xBittercut.  If you only graze/hit, or fight a high slash DR enemy, Bittercut will do a little better in that situation since purgatory/resolution's advantage is with critical hits only.

 

Annihilation enchant (on patch 3.02) adds a 50% damage modifier which is over twice Bittercut's 20% spirit of decay bonus.  If Bittercut performs better than those sabers (when landing a critical hit), then something else must be going on with the math that we are missing.

 

Hmm are u sure that 0.5 Annihilation will be better than Base Damage x 1.2 Before all the Lashes are counted ? If Lashes gets boosted by increased base damage before anything and then again by elemental talents , i think this is what makes a difference

 

0.5 from Annihilation on sabre is only 6.5 - 9.5 Damage on the final Result and only if you Crit 

Edited April 18, 2016 by Blunderboss

[Elric Galad]

Bonus damages used to be additive.

 

Annihilation on crit meant +50% damages.

Spirit of Decay should have meant +20% damages.

This has been the case since the beginning of PoE.

 

OR there are hidden rules or modified stuff.

[dunehunter]

Spirit of decay multiplies Bittercut's basic damage by 1.2, but that does not includes Might bonus.

[Braven]

Does monk's "blood testiment" also work like a lash, multiplying total damage? Another good item for monk's version of monster lash.

[dunehunter]

One of important thing for monster lash is rip down the most annoying enemy at the begin of battle, which monk isn't able to do that.

[Braven]

One of important thing for monster lash is rip down the most annoying enemy at the begin of battle, which monk isn't able to do that.

Very true. Immediate monster lash at the start of combat is a really great benefit. I am not saying monk is better than paladin or is a better monster lash build; I am just trying to figure out the max damage math for comparison of that one aspect since it can be confusing/deceptive in pillars.

 

It is worth noting that even with just two wounds, monks have a respectable 100% in lashes, a full attack ready, and 25% attack recovery bonus to more quickly spam another afterwards. That will do around 100 damage in my comparison example, only 20% worse than paladin. Two wounds only takes a couple seconds to get in harder difficulties so it is basically at the start of combat.

 

After playing around with a new monk for a bit and looking at the combat log, I see that Torments reach's +50% is actually a lash, not an additive bonus, so my above math is wrong; it is actually a bit better though sadly it is "crush" instead of an elemental type we can further buff. I have also noticed that vulnerable attack doesn't affect lash DR at all, making that a bad talent for monster lash. It is only a flat 5 damage max per attack which is clearly not worth the talent's downside. I imagine other DR-bypass also doesn't work. New math with TR lash and blood testament with the example 50 regular damage (before lashes):

 

Elemental lashes

+45% fire (turning)

+25 shock (swift)

+25 fire or shock (enchant)

= 95% * 1.2

= 114%

 

Non-Elemental lashes

+18% raw (testament)

+50% crush (torment)

= 68%

 

Final Damage

141. (Caveat: Lashes will approx. double overall DR)

 

Side note: fire and shock utility talents combined only add about 9.5 damage in this example under optimal conditions. I think I would save those for last if taken. Other melee ones probably have a bigger impact on DPS.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Braven

[Kaylon]

The paladin has also 3 lashes. As long as they're from different sources they're calculated separately, it doesn't matter if they do the same type of damage.

[Braven]

Is the 1/4 DR penalty applied again, even if the same damage type? I wonder if the MIN damage rules still apply with lashes. I guess high DR can reduce the damage quite a bit. Monk's four (non-raw) lashes means essentially double DR (and the lash half can't be bypassed).

 

Also, I think paladin has 4 lash DRs (same as monk) as they also have 4 non-raw sources. Even though intense flames claims to modify the existing FoD lash the the description, nothing really works that way. Probably because the Unity files are modulized into separate asset files, everything is applied separately and don't really consider each other. Similar to how "rapid recovery" shows up as a separate number from "constant recovery", even though it claims to modify the later.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Braven

[Kaylon]

Indeed, Intense Flames is considered a different lash too. 

[BlackArchon]

I just noticed that Bittercut does Corrode/Slash damage instead of Slash/Corrode. Why haven't I noticed that before? So it really should benefit from Corrosive Lash and Spirit of Decay. 

[Boeroer]

It does. But I can't answer your question.

 

There are weapons or spells which do physical/elemental damage (Minor Missiles, Prestidigitator's Missiles, Durance's Staff...) and some which do it the other way round (Stormcaller, Bittercut...).

 

Only the later will profit from a talent like Spirit of Decay, Heart of the Storm or Scion of Flame.

 

I'm a bit sad that there's no weapon that does freeze/physical damage. Rimecutter, the White Spire or Wendwalker would have been great for this. Because all in all, Secrets of Rime and all the ice stuff is a bit underpowered. There are two or three nice ice spells and that's it. No pure freeze damage scroll, no freezing weapon, no special abilities. Fire, corrode and shock have a lot of spells, weapons, abilities and scrolls.

 

I tried to build an ice themed chanter - and although he has two nice invocations with that theme and a chant, he's just inferior to a fire based chanter. Same with a wizard or druid.

 

And what's that witch all the fire(ball) spellbindings? Flames of Fair Rhian, Taluntain's Staff, Necklace of Fireballs, Curoc's Brand, The Sun Touched Mail, Amulet of Summer Solstice. You can build a mighty Pyromamcer with those items. If you duplicate the Flames sabre you can have 10 Fireballs per rest and 6 Sunbeams. Lots of fire based scrolls on top of that. If you want to build that with ice... you're screwed.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

There are weapons or spells which do physical/elemental damage (Minor Missiles, Prestidigitator's Missiles, Durance's Staff...) and some which do it the other way round (Stormcaller, Bittercut...).

 

Only the later will profit from a talent like Spirit of Decay, Heart of the Storm or Scion of Flame.

 

I call bug (but I cba to report it.)

[Boeroer]

cba? California Bureau of... of... Awesomeness?