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Torchlight II |OT| Good things come to those who wait
- Thread starter jim-jam bongs
- Start date
Theorycrafting more builds, more sadness at how much better Focus builds seem to be in general. Trying to figure out how I want my 2H Engineer to go but I keep getting back to needing to figure out itemization for Emberquake's STR:Focus ratio. Need some really good purely Elemental Damage 2H weapons so I can just go pure Focus and hate myself for a fourth Focus character.
Another sort-of Caster Berserker! Hooray! My build: 10/61/46, 15 points to spare. Though, you're really not aiming to be as caster heavy as mine :x
Generally speaking, I don't think a high Blood Hunger is worth it. It's a 1s heal so it's basically a way to keep yourself sustained through fights. However, what kills you will be burst damage, not slowly getting worn down. 5k HP at 100 means that you'll heal yourself for 500 HP every second and with crits merely refreshing the duration, not stacking the buff. It's honestly not a great way to keep yourself alive. Shadow Burst is just an all-around better way to heal, even with the same "over 1 second" function it has. Greater percentage on it (up to 60%), functions as an escape tool, and it breaks Shields too. 1 Blood Hunger / 10 Shadow Burst would be a better spread in my opinion; 5% heal on crit, 9.5% Heal per target (up to four targets) per Shadow Burst.
Permafrost is a good skill to have if you're scaling up Focus and it also has great synergy with Shatter Storm. Ice Shield is also worthy of at least a point for the 44% chance to proc 10% Charge when struck; more points will also make it an anti-ranged buff which is nice to have. Stormclaw is a nice one-point skill as well, just to get an extra on-hit cleave.
Battle Standard is also really good to have. Increased Charge generation, great survivability from the Dodge boost, Knockback resistance, and then the broken Mana regen (which will probably get patched out; ~infinite mana per second and all). Likewise, Battle Rage is a great way to deal with crowds and take no damage due to the Damage Reduction it gets.
Also, just to note, most the Berserker passives require a melee weapon so keep that in mind for a Focus heavy build. Mine started as a sort of melee Tundra build that shifted to pure caster with Wands just due to my stat distribution (~113 DEX/53 VIT rest Focus) so I ended up dropping all the Melee-only passives. Which is basically all of them.
If it deals WeaponDPS, it procs Staff Mastery. The same applies to Wand Mastery. This means Magma Spear, Icy Blast, and Shockbolts will trigger it (the two channeled WeaponDPS spells won't, for the record). Icy Blast is a lot better than I gave it credit for originally, though it's an iffy spell on Elite if only for it best used at point-blank range. It still fires weird for trying to snipe things from afar :/
Icy Blast is mainly there to proc Staff Mastery; for that, you can leave it at 5/15 (-20% Damage debuff is still nice to have). Frost Wave is what makes the Frost spec. It's a monster of a spell.
You could always wait for Emberquake. It's a really good 2H Ability, massive range, and it benefits greatly from Fire and Spark. The downside is that it benefits fairly well from both STR (WeaponDPS scaling) and Focus (raw Magic damage) so stat builds and itemization feels clunky.
Onslaught is also nice to have for wading into fights and debuffing things. Onslaught -> Ember Hammer is a nice way to start fights by jumping in, debuffing enemies, and then knocking off all their shields. But, I personally dislike Ember Hammer so it's more of a one-point wonder skill for taking out shields. It is nice for Force Field builds if you max it, though; it scales well with Charge but doesn't actually use them up so it lets you take advantage of Charge while not actively spending it.
Also, I like Coup de Grace but I think it's best at one point. 3*STR is a good amount of damage as is and the 1s cooldown makes it not that great vs trash enemies and then bosses are stun immune. Uniques can be stunned, and some bigger trash enemies, so it's not entirely useless. Just ... doesn't feel worth the investment.
Another sort-of Caster Berserker! Hooray! My build: 10/61/46, 15 points to spare. Though, you're really not aiming to be as caster heavy as mine :x
Generally speaking, I don't think a high Blood Hunger is worth it. It's a 1s heal so it's basically a way to keep yourself sustained through fights. However, what kills you will be burst damage, not slowly getting worn down. 5k HP at 100 means that you'll heal yourself for 500 HP every second and with crits merely refreshing the duration, not stacking the buff. It's honestly not a great way to keep yourself alive. Shadow Burst is just an all-around better way to heal, even with the same "over 1 second" function it has. Greater percentage on it (up to 60%), functions as an escape tool, and it breaks Shields too. 1 Blood Hunger / 10 Shadow Burst would be a better spread in my opinion; 5% heal on crit, 9.5% Heal per target (up to four targets) per Shadow Burst.
Permafrost is a good skill to have if you're scaling up Focus and it also has great synergy with Shatter Storm. Ice Shield is also worthy of at least a point for the 44% chance to proc 10% Charge when struck; more points will also make it an anti-ranged buff which is nice to have. Stormclaw is a nice one-point skill as well, just to get an extra on-hit cleave.
Battle Standard is also really good to have. Increased Charge generation, great survivability from the Dodge boost, Knockback resistance, and then the broken Mana regen (which will probably get patched out; ~infinite mana per second and all). Likewise, Battle Rage is a great way to deal with crowds and take no damage due to the Damage Reduction it gets.
Also, just to note, most the Berserker passives require a melee weapon so keep that in mind for a Focus heavy build. Mine started as a sort of melee Tundra build that shifted to pure caster with Wands just due to my stat distribution (~113 DEX/53 VIT rest Focus) so I ended up dropping all the Melee-only passives. Which is basically all of them.
If it deals WeaponDPS, it procs Staff Mastery. The same applies to Wand Mastery. This means Magma Spear, Icy Blast, and Shockbolts will trigger it (the two channeled WeaponDPS spells won't, for the record). Icy Blast is a lot better than I gave it credit for originally, though it's an iffy spell on Elite if only for it best used at point-blank range. It still fires weird for trying to snipe things from afar :/
Icy Blast is mainly there to proc Staff Mastery; for that, you can leave it at 5/15 (-20% Damage debuff is still nice to have). Frost Wave is what makes the Frost spec. It's a monster of a spell.
You could always wait for Emberquake. It's a really good 2H Ability, massive range, and it benefits greatly from Fire and Spark. The downside is that it benefits fairly well from both STR (WeaponDPS scaling) and Focus (raw Magic damage) so stat builds and itemization feels clunky.
Onslaught is also nice to have for wading into fights and debuffing things. Onslaught -> Ember Hammer is a nice way to start fights by jumping in, debuffing enemies, and then knocking off all their shields. But, I personally dislike Ember Hammer so it's more of a one-point wonder skill for taking out shields. It is nice for Force Field builds if you max it, though; it scales well with Charge but doesn't actually use them up so it lets you take advantage of Charge while not actively spending it.
Also, I like Coup de Grace but I think it's best at one point. 3*STR is a good amount of damage as is and the 1s cooldown makes it not that great vs trash enemies and then bosses are stun immune. Uniques can be stunned, and some bigger trash enemies, so it's not entirely useless. Just ... doesn't feel worth the investment.
UncleSporky
Member
I really need a good build to shoot for with a berserker. Everybody's advice feels at odds with everyone else, I haven't seen anything really solid on various forums. Not solid like Glaive Throw, Prismatic Bolt, Flame Hammer...
What's a nice build with good synergies that has some killing power? 2H, dual wield, whatever.
EDIT: scy, that looks pretty cool. What does a typical fight look like with that? Is Frost Breath very important to the build? It does weapon damage so that seems at odds with the focus on...focus.
What's a nice build with good synergies that has some killing power? 2H, dual wield, whatever.
EDIT: scy, that looks pretty cool. What does a typical fight look like with that? Is Frost Breath very important to the build? It does weapon damage so that seems at odds with the focus on...focus.
Thanks for the pointers! I think I'll try Onslaught for 1 point and see how I feel about it.
Also, Emberquake seems like it could be fun.. If you put points into Fire and Spark you probably won't need to spend stat points into Focus, which is probably gonna save the ability. Fire and Spark would also make Ember Hammer better, since it deals electric damage.. Hmm.
Won't be putting more points into Coup De Grace, I already have a pretty high str and that's as good as it gets
edit: Aiming for this at level 50: http://torchlight2armory.com/skill-calc?i=3#drsIAvRRG2ynHYJAHBtvVkA02bom4XNUX2UZ_DoykpDbCdOICF2
UncleSporky
Member
Yeah, while I haven't used it myself Emberquake is supposed to make the game almost boring. Kills everything on the whole screen, no waiting. And you're right, it seems that Fire and Spark's whole purpose is to make it less necessary to put points in focus. Emberquake does weapon damage as well so it'll benefit from strength just fine.
There's a pretty nifty Raze/Northern Rage/Shadow Burst build. Shadow Burst in, Northern Rage to clear packs, Raze to destroy bigger enemies. Typical Battle Rage/Battle Standard + Howl defensive setup otherwise.
Frost Breath is there for the debuff primarily and to serves as a means to Life Steal/Mana Steal eventually. Basically, to replace my auto-attack. Fights are basically just throwing Glacial Shatters with Permafrost up. It's a purely caster build, a far cry from a Berserker standard I suppose. I just found the concept interesting and ran with it.
As for Weapon Damage, I use a Wand. My WeaponDPS scales with Focus. Edit: Likewise, this applies to Wolf Pack's WeaponDPS scaling and the flat Physical damage scales with Focus.
Of note, my highest Berserker is around 45 or so and was a mishmash of builds (STR/DEX/Focus split, melee Tundra attempt basically) so I can't comment how well this plays into NG+'s and so on. I haven't played nearly enough :/
UncleSporky
Member
Ah, that's cool, thanks.
Not sure I would max Shadow Burst, 5 targets seems like overkill.
Why do these builds take Battle Standard to 10? That only seems necessary if you're playing in a group, right? Are its beneficial properties optimal right there, but double the duration isn't worth aiming for?
Not sure I would max Shadow Burst, 5 targets seems like overkill.
Why do these builds take Battle Standard to 10? That only seems necessary if you're playing in a group, right? Are its beneficial properties optimal right there, but double the duration isn't worth aiming for?
Felix Lighter
Member
I've been looking at other's 2H engineer builds. Did I waste the points I invested in Bulwark? I haven't seen many people using it.
UncleSporky
Member
It's a pretty defensive thing, and a lot of people go all out damage and/or don't need defense because they rely on Forcefield.
Probably essential for hardcore, though!
Edit: I forgot to mention this for the build I run but Cast Speed is godlike. This also applies to melee builds; skills used are all Cast Speed, even if they have a weapon swing animation. Probably obvious based on the roots and all but figured it worth mention. So, that Raze build I mentioned earlier will benefit from Cast Speed primarily.
It comes down to why not most the time. My sweet spot for it is 10 points (38%/use) but maxing it is still nice (60%/use). Guaranteed Shield Break is also nice.
I wanted it for the range since I'm a caster build. I would probably max it if you can afford to though.
The +Armor% isn't amazing but the -15% Damage taken, however, is. It's a great passive. Veteran/Elite should see a few more points in it at low levels really, especially 2H builds that need a way to not melt. Lower difficulties probably don't care since good Armor can mitigate enough for you that the %Damage Reduction doesn't seem all that great.
Forcefield also overshadows it.
It comes down to why not most the time. My sweet spot for it is 10 points (38%/use) but maxing it is still nice (60%/use). Guaranteed Shield Break is also nice.
I wanted it for the range since I'm a caster build. I would probably max it if you can afford to though.
The +Armor% isn't amazing but the -15% Damage taken, however, is. It's a great passive. Veteran/Elite should see a few more points in it at low levels really, especially 2H builds that need a way to not melt. Lower difficulties probably don't care since good Armor can mitigate enough for you that the %Damage Reduction doesn't seem all that great.
Forcefield also overshadows it.
Felix Lighter
Member
Alright, at least the points didn't go to waste. I'm playing NG Veteran, not HC right now.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
It is weird. For crowds I'd probably Hailstorm them first to hope that immobilizes a decent portion of them then hit with Icy Blast from medium range on alternating angles. It sure cleaned up house in the slaver's den just now, although that was rather closed so even misses became hits after a ricochet or two.
Yeah, I figured that if Frost Wave is a direct attack but more consistently hitting target than Icy Blast, then it could take priority as a striking move and Icy Blast would be more of a setup to kill their defenses. It's already wiping out champions with just 3 levels (to be fair, I have already acquired items for +13% ice damage, and hailstorm stacks on another 20%)
I also finally got well dressed! (it only took 3 different games to assemble the outfit...)
Poor puppy's little paws are feezing.
KpopGAF joke: This ice mage is named Jessica. I figured the little dog suited her best. Funny I got the well dressed achievement with her.
How useful is vitality for a berserker in elite? Currently playing on veteran and I have been putting about 15% of my points in vitality and it seems the least useful out of focus, dex, and str. I was doing 2/2/0/1 till about level 25 and have switched to something more like 1.5/2/1/.5
UncleSporky
Member
scy, may I ask why you aren't using Cold Steel Mastery? +90% to ice damage in an ice build is kind of a big deal, no?
EDIT: I realize it probably affects only weapon damage, so would mostly only be useful for Frost Breath?
EDIT: I realize it probably affects only weapon damage, so would mostly only be useful for Frost Breath?
I refuse to use any pet but Falcor.
If you're using a Shield (and you probably will), it's fairly useful up to 10% (53 VIT) or maybe 20% (113) Block chance. If you're not using many non-WeaponDPS scaling skills, I probably would not invest all that much into Focus anyway, mostly STR/DEX and some VIT. 2/2/0/1, maybe a few Focus points occasionally if you need the Mana, though the returns are really, really awful for that. 2/2/0/1 basically all the way, maybe sacrifice early STR to get VIT to 53 earlier.
Just to note, as you progress higher and higher, you'll probably be straying away from auto-attack as your primary source of damage anyway so there's a good chance that you won't really see a damage loss from no longer using Dual Wield. This is also why Cold Steel, for instance, isn't that great of a passive since there's very few skills it directly applies to. Which is unfortunate, as I keep seeing the massive +Cold damage it gets and keep dreaming of what could have been.
Hah, almost got to it before someone asked it! Cold Steel applies only to melee attacks. This means it's basically just the Hunter tree that it works on and I don't run any skills for that. If you manage to get a really awesome Physical/Cold weapon, Cold Steel is amazing for Raze then I'd imagine but that seriously limits your itemization options.
Edit: Also works on melee auto attacks but ... yeah.
Edit: ...looks like some people are testing Cold Steel Mastery and it may in fact be working for more skills. And by that I mean the tooltip actually means "Requires a Melee Weapon" and not "Works on melee attacks."
Guess I have some testing to do when I get off work.
If you're using a Shield (and you probably will), it's fairly useful up to 10% (53 VIT) or maybe 20% (113) Block chance. If you're not using many non-WeaponDPS scaling skills, I probably would not invest all that much into Focus anyway, mostly STR/DEX and some VIT. 2/2/0/1, maybe a few Focus points occasionally if you need the Mana, though the returns are really, really awful for that. 2/2/0/1 basically all the way, maybe sacrifice early STR to get VIT to 53 earlier.
Just to note, as you progress higher and higher, you'll probably be straying away from auto-attack as your primary source of damage anyway so there's a good chance that you won't really see a damage loss from no longer using Dual Wield. This is also why Cold Steel, for instance, isn't that great of a passive since there's very few skills it directly applies to. Which is unfortunate, as I keep seeing the massive +Cold damage it gets and keep dreaming of what could have been.
Hah, almost got to it before someone asked it! Cold Steel applies only to melee attacks. This means it's basically just the Hunter tree that it works on and I don't run any skills for that. If you manage to get a really awesome Physical/Cold weapon, Cold Steel is amazing for Raze then I'd imagine but that seriously limits your itemization options.
Edit: Also works on melee auto attacks but ... yeah.
Edit: ...looks like some people are testing Cold Steel Mastery and it may in fact be working for more skills. And by that I mean the tooltip actually means "Requires a Melee Weapon" and not "Works on melee attacks."
Guess I have some testing to do when I get off work.
Onslaught in, Ember Hammer off their Shields, Dynamo to build Charge if you go that route, do something with all your Charge!
And by do something with your Charge, I probably mean Forcefield
UncleSporky
Member
Onslaught in, Ember Hammer off their Shields, Dynamo to build Charge if you go that route, do something with all your Charge!
And by do something with your Charge, I probably mean Forcefield
Hehe, well if you're not going to use your charge for anything else, you might as well use it for Forcefield
And I've never really had a problem with shields honestly. I just keep a slow 2-hander in my weapon slot so if I need to break a shield, I just swap into it, do a swing and enjoy all the "SHATTERED!" messages on my screen. I guess it comes with having a big str value.
As for weapons, I do prefer faster swords and polearms to get more procs out of supercharge. 5 points in supercharge seems to be the sweetspot for a fast 2-hander.
Haha, you're right. I really wish I was off work right now just so I could test this out. I'd hate to shift to a different build (again). ~270 STR, 113 DEX, ~100 Focus, 53 VIT? Meh.
Makes the passive worth 180 Focus, not factoring the Physical part of it. Which is enough to be potentially build changing. And means that losing a heavy amount of Focus doesn't really hurt the Permafrost part of the build. Hrm...decisions, decisions :/
Don't think there is any sort of moderation online at all.
It's the Wild West out there man.
UncleSporky
Member
Ok scy, I just made a naked level 100 guy with your exact build except with every point dumped into Focus, first without and then with Cold Steel. I tried each with buffs up and without.
It makes a big difference on the damage of Glacial Shatter, but it seemed like the initial burst of damage was pretty variable, from 15k to 60k. The big numbers did happen more often with Cold Steel.
But something I definitely noticed - how weird is this? - the ongoing damage afterward was definitely 1k higher with Cold Steel than without, but I thought that was supposed to be fire damage! I was seeing ongoing 1500s without, and 2500s with.
You can literally turn Cold Steel on and off based on whether you have a melee weapon in your hand. On the "J" stat screen, when equipping/unequipping a melee weapon I could watch my ice damage % go from 0 to 90, back and forth.
It makes a big difference on the damage of Glacial Shatter, but it seemed like the initial burst of damage was pretty variable, from 15k to 60k. The big numbers did happen more often with Cold Steel.
But something I definitely noticed - how weird is this? - the ongoing damage afterward was definitely 1k higher with Cold Steel than without, but I thought that was supposed to be fire damage! I was seeing ongoing 1500s without, and 2500s with.
You can literally turn Cold Steel on and off based on whether you have a melee weapon in your hand. On the "J" stat screen, when equipping/unequipping a melee weapon I could watch my ice damage % go from 0 to 90, back and forth.
Well, Cold Steel Mastery itself is just a percentage modifier (grants +X% Physical Damage, +Y% Cold Damage when equipped with a melee weapon) so it comes down to the skills you use. If the ability doesn't say "WeaponDPS", it scales with Focus. If it says "WeaponDPS as Element", it should also scale with Focus. Otherwise, it scales with Strength. Then again, I'm not entirely sure with all the other tooltip shenanigans that Runic has so far :/
I think I need to just console up a test character and throw things at the training dummy. If all else fails, I could just use the Raze build ... I guess. :|
Edit: Or I could be beaten to it! There's a lot of weird things with this game :| Right now, all my build really did was drop the Wolf Shade/Wolfpack parts of it for Cold Steel so it's not really a big deal, I suppose. I'm more looking at how I tweak my stat spread. And this is why I like respec options
Only thing remaining is how do Blood Hunger/Rampage treat melee weapon wielding crits/kills with skills.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
This is my only real issue with the game... nobody knows WTF anything does. We are literally all working together to figure stuff out and put it in a wiki. Even the basic systems of gameplay aren't explained in the game, the abilities are barely described let alone elaborated on, and there is no official resource to check. I understand not doing a print book because they'll want to tweak some things, but then why couldn't they make their own wiki? It has been done before.
My problem is that tooltips are rather vague or misleading (Cold Steel Mastery, for instance, claims "only melee attacks" when it really just means "while wielding a melee weapon," which are two fucking different things).
I'm sort of fine with having to figure things out myself (I did a lot of work on the Etrian Odyssey and Disgaea game mechanics) but it's rather annoying :/ Especially without proper respecs.
Setvan2734
Member
Can a person that isnt in Newgame+ yet, create a game, and have a friend in NG++ join it?
MasterShotgun
brazen editing lynx
You've got to be on the same level of NG+ as someone else to play with them online.
UncleSporky
Member
Someone on the forums was saying that dodge appears not to report every time it procs, that they definitely dodge more often than is stated.
We need something better than armor to take care of freakin' magic damage. An "emberdodge" stat or something, seriously.
Hell, the combat log lies to you so this wouldn't really surprise me.
This game is really a clusterfuck in regards to what it tells the player. As someone who thoroughly enjoys number crunching, this is kind of disheartening.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
The linear reduction can certainly get you fucked over rather easily. A simplistic yet numerous and fast crowd swarms in to stall you, then in just a moment fighting them, suddenly a mage off screen has a slow, immobilize, or draw on you, then an outer crowd of magic-throwers and the main mage all fire at once. Bam, insta-dead. It makes the dash/backflip/teleport moves absolutely essential.
Though, I'm not far enough in the game to know: Do the "reflect projectile" shields in different classes reflect magic projectiles, or just arrows and stuff?
I want to know this too.
Setvan2734
Member
Has there been any word recently on when the modding tools will be out?
Melee Outlander turned into use-whatever-the-hell Outlander. Being melee without having abilities that require melee just feels like gimping myself.
Dodge seems to only occur with melee attacks. It might work on projectiles, but I'm confident it does not work with spells. It doesn't help that DODGED never pops up like BLOCKED does.
No word. They've only said that they're working on it.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Passive reflect does so I would assume those do as well.
As for stat dumping and builds for characters, if you are using skills that rely on weapon dps and auto attacks a majority of the time *not wands/staffs* then Str is better than focus. If you like skills that have no dps modifier on them then focus is better.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
God damn. I love this game. I'm only like 8 hours in, but it's just... so good. It is exactly the game I wanted.
UncleSporky
Member
Strength increases all weapon damage including physical and elemental, but only weapon damage.
Focus increases all elemental damage, both on your weapon and on skills.
Thus skills that say they deal damage as a percentage of weapon DPS use strength.
Skills that say they deal a flat amount of damage (or scaled to your level) and make no mention of your weapon use focus.
So whichever affects the abilities you are using the most.
There's skills with both Weapon DPS and flat modifiers. Or WeaponDPS as Elemental Damage. Balancing Crit Damage comes into question here as well. Then there's a question of which is better overall: WeaponDPS scaling or Level Scaling? Signs are pointing to the latter so you get high DPS 2H Engineer builds, for instance, that want more Focus than STR with Seismic Slam, Dynamo Field, and Emberquake.
I think my Engineer will just do 113 DEX with 1:1 STR:Focus until I sit down and math it all out :|
You'll probably want to raise some Dodge as well. 2/1/1/1 may be the most optimal split until STR v Focus gets figured out.
Worth noting that Shield Bash scales with Focus.
Just to note, "Elemental" damage includes some Physical skills as well.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
SublimeO12
Neo Member
I think the Weapon DPS as Elemental Damage applies mostly to some of the skills that say that like Flame Hammer. Some regular weapons other than wand/staff also apply Elemental damage that I'm assume is affected by Focus.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
That's the weird thing about working with staves. Even though your basic attack physically smacks them over the head with it, all of that damage is magic damage. This is clear because when you equip a staff the numbers are exactly the same for magic and weapon damage and bonuses to the magic it uses also change the weapon damage listing.
So, if you up your STR, it will improve your base attack, which is magical, but not your spells. If you up FOC, it will improve both. So the only reason to put into STR over FOC is to get that critical damage up. Yet when you consider how many points it takes vs what you can itemize, it's not really worth it at all. I'm probably going to go 10/105/300/120 with my stats.
So, if you up your STR, it will improve your base attack, which is magical, but not your spells. If you up FOC, it will improve both. So the only reason to put into STR over FOC is to get that critical damage up. Yet when you consider how many points it takes vs what you can itemize, it's not really worth it at all. I'm probably going to go 10/105/300/120 with my stats.
Luckily, +Crit Damage sockets are amazing so it really helps make up for the lack of STR for Embermages. Or anyone, really. So don't fret about low Crit damage mods from your base stats so much :x
Incidentally, I actually don't think Flame Hammer deals Fire damage on hit, just the splinters and DoT. This is one of those things that needs some testing done.
Incidentally, I actually don't think Flame Hammer deals Fire damage on hit, just the splinters and DoT. This is one of those things that needs some testing done.
UncleSporky
Member
I was just playing with this a bit with a naked 100 engineer with the 100 legendary hammer and strength all the way. I actually can't tell you the answer to this one, I'm no scientist and the damage spread is always big enough to make me second guess what I'm seeing. Maybe focus would've been a better test?
When attacking the target dummy, I would see one smallish number like 5k, followed by a largeish number like 20k, followed by several minor numbers like 2k. With Fire and Spark added, it looked like all the numbers got higher except perhaps that first 5k. Particularly the minor ones (DoT I'm assuming) went up to 3-5k.
It looked like the small traveling flames were bouncing back immediately and hitting the dummy. Could that be throwing off any observations, or are they unable to hit the primary target again?
In any case I saw enough difference that I think I'll keep Fire and Spark in mind for my 2H guy, it's beneficial. Not sure if it's 15 points beneficial though.
Rickenslacker
Banned
There was a room full of floor blade traps that I managed to kite enemies around and kill with. That's rad, I don't think I've ever been able to do that in a loot game like this.