Questions about status effects

[GreenMagic469 8]

Hey guys,

I have a few questions about status effects and how they work.

1) Burn and poison... Are they basically the same, or do they function differently? I'm aware burn normally lasts about 5 seconds and poison about 3, but is poison more powerful as a result of being shorter or what? Is it just a weaker version of burn?

2) Do effects occur ONLY from "Chance to burn" or "Chance to poison" modifiers, or does the element of the weapon have a chance of causing a status effect as well? So like, if I had a sword enchanted with fire property, would this have a chance of causing burn also? Or is it only caused by the "Chance to" modifier?

3) Will poisoning or burning an enemy do more damage if the enemy is weak to that element? Or are the status of poison and burn completely separate from the elements of poison and fire?

Lastly...

4) When using Levin Array on an Inquisitor, I notice that the affected enemies have a little buzzing electric status on them for a few seconds afterward. Is this purely for aesthetics, or is this a unique, electric version of burn/poison that deals damage over time? Or something else entirely?

Thanks for your insight.

Edited February 16, 2016 by GreenMagic469

[Flix 5,116]

1) Let's see if the Wiki can help us:

Chance for Poison

Chance for Burn

 

Based on the math I think poison and burn are "equal," just different damage types.

 

 

2) According to the Wiki, the "chance to [cause secondary effect]" merely boosts your existing chance, which is determined by what percentage of your attack is dealing the corresponding damage type.

 

Take for example what's written on the page for Fire Damage:

"Fire can be a default damage type of some class's Combat Arts. Depending upon the chosen combat art, it may be mixed with other damage types. For example, the High Elf's Blazing Tempest elemental damage type starting composition is 100% Fire. This means that each of the waves that hit enemies have an excellent chance of inflicting Chance for Burn, as the percentage of Fire damage in that combat art is 100%."

 

I think the total chance to burn/poison etc. is shown on the character sheet, if you mouse over your weapon or combat art section, a tooltip should pop up with information including the chance to cause those effects.

 

 

3) Yes! It's a lot to take in all at once, but here's a quote from the Secondary Damage Effects page:

"The periodic damage of a Secondary Damage Effect is directly proportional to the inflicted damage that caused the effect. Periodic damage caused by Secondary Damage Effect depends on how much damage the character has received: for example, if character's armor absorbs 75% incoming damage, periodic damage caused by Secondary Damage Effect will also inflict 75% less damage."

 

Likewise burn and poison follow the same rules as flat damage regarding critical hits (+20% damage) or spell resistance check fails (-30% damage).

 

 

4). As far as I know, that's what magic damage over time looks like. Check the pics and tell me if that's what you're seeing. You'd think it would be the secondary effect of magic damage, but it's not (Weaken is). Magic damage over time is just built into certain spells as an innate property or (for the player) as a modification, and it happens to have a visual effect.

[GreenMagic469 8]

AWESOME info, thanks Flix. What a helpful dude.

Yes, that "magic damage over time" is exactly what I'm seeing after using Levin Array. It looks like this is basically a third type of damage effect, similar to burn and poison, but only available in certain skills. Interesting.

[Androdion 875]

Damage types are more or like divided in half, with physical/fire/poison causing DOT by the way of open wounds/burn/poison, and magic/ice causing enemies' attributes to become reduced by the way of weaken/freeze.

 

So basically when you have a weapon that deals physical damage it has an inherent chance to cause physical DOT, and when it has other damage types those too present themselves in the equation (though I'm still not sure at this point if open wounds really works like that on every weapon). The thing is, the lesser the percentage of the partial damage type the lesser the chance to cause the corresponding secondary effect. You can see the percentages by hovering the mouse over the damage indicator of the weapon.

 

Then you have to account for the enemies resistances. So basically if you want to maximize damage you'll need to have as much of the damage type the enemy is less resistant to in your weapon. That way you can cause a lot of direct damage (hitting with weapon) as well as DOT from the effects it will spawn.

 

Hope that helped.