Archon's Elemental Damage Conversion does not appear to work

So there's a lot of posts about how the Archon recovery period reduction passives/affixes don't work, and they totally don't, but I believe there's another issue with Archon.

I do not believe that the "Convert 100% of Elemental Damage with Spells to [type] Damage" effect works either.

On my cold build that utilizes Ice Archon, I swapped from a staff that gave Spell and Cold damage to one that gives Damage as Extra Fire and Extra Lightning damage.

Curious to see how much it changed not just my flat sheet damage, but also my Archon sheet damage, I noticed something very interesting. When I am in Ice Archon, I lose damage.

My first thought was, "How is this possible?" The extra Fire/Lightning should get converted to Cold, and then that damage should be further boosted by an additional 25% more Cold damage.

So I started to dig into it a little more.

I have two Staves:
Staff 1 (Extra Fire/Lightning):


Staff 2 (Spell/Cold Damage):


At the bottom of this post are screenshots of the iterations of both the Ice Archon buff being active and inactive.

When Ice Archon is not active on Staff 1, my Frost Darts spell does:
300 - 453 Fire Damage
957 - 1439 Cold Damage
300 - 453 Lightning Damage

When Ice Archon is active on Staff 1, my Frost Darts spell does:
1196 - 1799 Cold Damage

957 * 1.25 = 1196.25 = Rounded down to 1196
1439 * 1.25 = 1798.75 = Rounded up to 1799

What happened to my 300 - 453 Fire and Lightning damage?

I would expect:
1946 - 2931 Cold Damage
(957 + 300 + 300) * 1.25 = 1946.25
(1439 + 453 + 453) * 1.25 = 2931.25

The Extra Fire and Lightning Damage appears to fall off entirely.

Meanwhile, with Staff 2, I see the expected results:
1363 - 2058 Cold Damage with Ice Archon off
1704 - 2572 Cold Damage with Ice Archon on

1363 * 1.25 = 1703.75 = Rounded up to 1704
2058 * 1.25 = 2572.5 = Rounded down to 2572

I wanted to test this with a non "Extra" damage source for Fire or Lightning, but one is not easily accessible for spells (no support gives non Extra of either). So ultimately, I'm left with only being able to confirm that "Extra" does not work with Archon.

TL;DR / Conclusion
Extra Elemental Damage of non-Archon element type is lost when Archon is active. This is not the expected result when the game states that it Converts 100% of Elemental Damage from Spells to Archon element type.

-----

Staff 1 with Archon Active:


Staff 1 with Archon Inactive:


-----

Staff 2 with Archon Active:


Staff 2 with Archon Active:

Honestly the most shocking part of this post is that your build manages to reach such a high level by using two staves.

But yeah something is certainly off.

I guess the "cannot do non-Cold damage" is being applied before the damage conversion. I am not sure why is this mod necessary when the conversion exists too. I guess it is so archon can't do physical or Chaos damage.

"

vexorian#9572 wrote:

Honestly the most shocking part of this post is that your build manages to reach such a high level by using two staves.

Oh it doesn't. I only equipped both at the same time as an easy way to test and check the numbers. Staff 2 was what I was using while Staff 1 was a new staff that should have been objectively better.

Although you just gave me an idea that could utilize a second staff, so thanks.

Unfortunately I suspect you're right, the conversion happens before Extra is applied and then the "Deal no non-Cold damage" mod removes them entirely. In my opinion, this is a bug from the design of Archon even though "technically" correct.

"

Polantaris#1920 wrote:

The extra Fire/Lightning should get converted to Cold

Conversion happens in a two step process--with the first step being solely for damage conversion that's part of the skill itself.

Aside from conversion inherent to the skill being used, all "Converts" and "Gain as" effects occur at the same time, and do not affect each other (with the exception of not being able to "Convert" more than 100% of a stat). "Gain as" is essentially a special type of conversion that does not remove the source.



This is the same for stat conversion as well. For example, you can have Energy Shield while using Eldritch Battery if you equip Ghostwrithe or The Everlasting Gaze.

It's an intended mechanic, that allows GGG to implement more types of conversion effects without having to define some complex web of what can convert into what. PoE1 has this with Damage Conversion, which is why damage can only be Converted or Gained As in a specific order: You can never convert any damage type into Physical damage, nor can you convert Chaos damage into any other damage type.

I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't really matter if it's a functional bug or a design bug/flaw. It voids entire use cases of Archon, and I would argue functions against its design and therefore is a bug by that principle, though not a programmatic one. It's a logical error.

Do you really think it's intended for players to spend 5+ skill points to be nerfed?

"

Polantaris#1920 wrote:

I understand what you're saying, but it doesn't really matter if it's a functional bug or a design bug/flaw. It voids entire use cases of Archon, and I would argue functions against its design and therefore is a bug by that principle, though not a programmatic one. It's a logical error.

Do you really think it's intended for players to spend 5+ skill points to be nerfed?

Well the four nodes leading up to archon are not worthless, but you point still has merit.

I believe the reduction in damage is because you lose and +dmg% modifiers on the original damage type before conversion. For example, if you have +50% fire damage and +50% cold damage for your character, then you'll only get one of those during damage conversion. So if your fire damage is converted to cold as part of archon, you'll get just the +50% to cold dmg (not 50% for fire, then another 50% after conversion to cold).

Also of note, the "damage as extra damage" works off the base damage. So multiple sources of "damage as extra damage" do not multiply.

The net result can be an overall damage decrease, depending upon your stats. You can see this on lightning builds when equipping a "Call of the Brotherhood" ring which converts all lightning to cold. The damage drops unless you have more +cold% than you do +lighting% in your tree/gear/etc.

My big issue with Archon is the timing. It's usually on cooldown when you want it. For lightning builds with Archmage + Eldritch Battery, I can trigger archon in about 2 seconds of casting spark, then I'm back into cooldown. The result is I feel like I have no agency over when Archon is active.

Except I literally did the math. I have no other sources of "More Cold Damage" so it's a straight 25% final Cold damage modifier. That math holds up on every value shown. The Fire and Lightning flat out drop off and the 25% is applied only to my cold damage before Archon is active.

I go through this math in my initial post. If you disagree with my math, tell me where in my formula I went wrong.