Mechanical Questions Thread

Thank you @Vipermagi!

I have a couple more qustions, albeit somewhat newbish ones:

- what is this "double dipping" thing I constantly read on this thread, and how does it work?
- what's the difference between poison and regular chaos damage? Which one is involved in caustic arrow and Viper strike?

does blights stacks count up to "maximum 20 total stacks, regardless of number of sources", or is it "20 stacks per source" ?

I read somewhere, there generaly - crit chance is rolled once per spell cast.. and either you crit everyone, or crit noone.

Is this true even for cascade-effect spell like Vaal ice nova?

Not only that does it sphread via hitting a target, but it also releases another ice-nova pulses on each of the targets.

"

MarkHark wrote:

- what is this "double dipping" thing I constantly read on this thread, and how does it work?
- what's the difference between poison and regular chaos damage? Which one is involved in caustic arrow and Viper strike?

Double dipping is a phenomenon whereby one bonus applies twice to the same item. It is only currently possible in the game via derived Damage over Time - Ignite, Poison, and Bleeding. With those, you can "double dip" by having a modifier that is allowed to apply to both the initial hit and the derived damage over time. For example, Ignite deals 20% of a hit's fire damage as fire damage over time by default. Then, suppose you have a Fireball Spell that deals:

100 fire damage in a hit

With no bonuses, you ignite for:

20 fire damage per second.

Suppose you get 100% increased Spell Damage. Spell Damage doesn't double dip. You will deal:

200 fire damage in a hit, and ignite for:
40 fire damage per second.

Now suppose instead of 100% increased Spell Damage, you get 100% increased Fire Damage. Fire Damage double dips on Ignite. You will deal:

200 fire damage in a hit, and Ignite for:
80 fire damage per second.

As you can see, by gaining "100% increased damage," we managed to bring our Ignite DPS from 20 to 80, or a 300% increase.

Double dipping is planned for removal in 3.0.

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Chaos Damage is a damage type, on the same category level as Physical, Fire, Cold, and Lightning. (Elemental refers to Fire, Cold, and Lightning).

Poison is a specific stackable debuff that applies Chaos Damage over Time*. If something doesn't say Poison, it's probably not applying Poison.

--- By default, Caustic Arrow has no interaction with Poison. However, if you have some extra source of Poison, you can Poison with the Arrow launched from Caustic Arrow (but not the Cloud. The Cloud can never Poison, as it does not hit, so Poison has nothing to derive from).
--- By default, Viper Strike Poisons. Its Poison stacks are a little special, as they last 4 times as long as normal Poison.

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Hope that helps.

*This probably isn't necessary to understand your questions, but I wanted to add it to share the knowledge and occupy my fingers with typing. Damage over Time is on the same categorical level as Spell, Attack, and Secondary. Secondary isn't officially named in the game, but that's what the game developers called it once, so it stuck. You can think of Secondary as "Non-Attack Non-Spell Hit." So the four categories on that level are:
Attack
Spell
Damage over Time
Secondary
It is NEVER possible for a Skill to deal more than one of these types, but there are specific exception-based modifiers that allow bonuses to one type to apply to another. For example, Crown of Eyes unique helmet allows increases/reductions to Spell damage also to apply to Attack damage. Currently, Vortex is notorious for having the "Modifiers to Spell Damage apply to this skill's Damage over Time" modifier, which allows Spell Damage to double dip. Normally this isn't a problem as default Vortex can't apply any derived Damage over Time; however, 100% conversion to fire is very easy in the current game version, which means Vortex becomes a stronger Ignite skill than the vast majority of actual Fire skills. This is probably what GGG is referring to when they talk about skill identity in their plans to nerf item-based conversion.

@adghar:
Great answer, thank you very much!

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svnhddbst wrote:

does blights stacks count up to "maximum 20 total stacks, regardless of number of sources", or is it "20 stacks per source" ?

Scorching Ray has a 'per source' maximum and I seem to remember it being mentioned it is the case for Blight too, but I'm not entirely positive on it.

"

Nathaniell123 wrote:

I read somewhere, there generaly - crit chance is rolled once per spell cast.. and either you crit everyone, or crit noone.

Is this true even for cascade-effect spell like Vaal ice nova?

Not only that does it sphread via hitting a target, but it also releases another ice-nova pulses on each of the targets.

Yes, it will do that for vaal ice nova or vaal detonate dead. Separate crit roll for every triggered effect is typically reserved for skills with a long duration, like Orb of Storms, Tempest shield or Blade Vortex.

is it possible to run 1 blade vortex and a 2nd blade vortex to apply a curse with curse on hit or will that change make me not able to cast the 2nd blade vortex?

I have a simple question that I cant find answer anywhere. For scion ascendancy, when I choose one of the ascendancy classes and one of their notable passive skills how many ascendancy points I invest 2 or 1.

"

gring0bg wrote:

I have a simple question that I cant find answer anywhere. For scion ascendancy, when I choose one of the ascendancy classes and one of their notable passive skills how many ascendancy points I invest 2 or 1.

1

(For example, 6 ascendancy points allows you to choose two Notables)

Last league I really enjoyed playing my Infernal Blow characters and I'm wondering how the radii of infernal blow's explosions are affected by the AOE changes. It's my favourite melee skill in the game and I'd really like to know the difference in size of the radius with the old templar cluster + headsman vs the new templar aoe cluster + headsman. Thanks.