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Weapon priority on Combat Arts


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OK, so this will sound like a noob question...

When dual-wielding any kind of weapons, is the damage on a weapon-based Combat Art using those two weapons always calculated according to just the primary weapon? And I mean both raw damage and damage types? I'm asking this because changing the secondary weapon changes the damage output on left click attacks (duh!), whereas where it comes down to my Shadow Warrior's weapon-based Combat Arts the damage output barely changes when equipping different weapons to the second slot.

Again, and I'm sorry if I'm just now uncovering something super duper obvious, but is this the standard pattern for all weapon-based Combat Arts while dual-wielding?

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If I rember that correctly, the second weapon - if dual wielding - is calculated with something around 25% of its damage. Let's say, you have two swords, each gives 1000 damage. the first gives you 1000, the second adds in just 250 damage. So you have just 1250 damage instead of 2000.

 

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That would make some sense but it's not what I'm seeing. What I'm seeing is a zero difference in the numerical value, just tried it with my toon naked and different weapons. If the weapons don't have any boost to Combart Art Skills or Tactics Lore the damage of the weapon-based Combat Arts remains unaltered when you slot in the second weapon. No matter how big or how small it is the damage will only be accounted by the primary slot. And even if they do have a boost to those skills the difference is still based on the increase in Combat Art level and/or the increase in base damage from the primary weapon given by Tactics Lore, so all in all the second weapon still isn't accounted for damage calculation on the Combat Arts.

Hence my question, is it supposed to be like that?

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I answered my own question.

So I rolled back the CM Patch and tried the same configuration in plain old I&B, and the results are the same. I could've done it from the get go, maybe some wires got burnt during the holidays or something. Carry on, nothing to see here.

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Just now, Androdion said:

I answered my own question.

So I rolled back the CM Patch and tried the same configuration in plain old I&B, and the results are the same. I could've done it from the get go, maybe some wires got burnt during the holidays or something. Carry on, nothing to see here.

I think the situation is a bit more complicated, off-hand weapon damage type is applied for sure, and, mayhaps, I am wrong, but it seems like some %% of damage too, but not 100% for sure...it would be nice if someone who is modding and knowing game from the inside has cleared the situation:bow:(I did not find the answer at the wiki site)

Edited by lacr
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And, yes, I read your message in other topic, but I dont want talking off-topic there

Just now, Androdion said:

Try dual wielding two weapons with two different damage converters and it's immediately noticeable.

No, it's not so obvious, as you have learned already that the information on the screen is not 100% informative and correct, try using in combat and you will notice that secondary damage type effects are applied alongside with other off-hand weapon bonuses. Say put in the main hand a pure physical weapon, and in the left hand a fire-based weapon, spam CA only and you will notice how enemies are burning, same if there is a lifeleech bonus in the left hand weapon. I sadly can't confirm situation with damage since CA has very high innate damage(

Edited by lacr
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Yeah, I kind of double posted but discussion about this can be had here. ;)

You have to account one thing in that scenario, and that is innate damage types on weapons. If you have a weapon that has physical and ice, and you socket it with a chunk of lava, you'll have the possibility for open wounds/freeze/burn with that weapon. So those detrimental effects still apply, even though the damage caused by the CA is based on the prevalent damage types on the weapon. Now imagine a weapon with ice in right hand and another with fire in the left, the CA will cause physical+ice damage. The possible detrimental effects though are those that are present in both weapons, it's kind of a "global bonus" like life leech. This is best seen if you use a dual wield with staff+sword. You'll see that when you cast, say Frenzied Rampage, the staff shoots projectiles according to its elemental damage despite of what the secondary weapon's damage types are.

Picking up on your example, causing fire damage isn't the same as causing enemies to burn. That is, damage has five types and each one causes (or not) one type of detrimental effects. But those aren't directly related to the CA but rather to the damage that was dealt. And each time that elemental damage is dealt a secondary effect (burn in case of fire damage) can also be triggered. So again, if you have different elemental damage types on you dual wield weapons you'll still have the possibility to cause detrimental (read, secondary) effects based on those damage types. Hope that clears it out. ;)

In respect to the damage calculation do the following. Strip your toon naked, insert dual wield weapons. Now take the secondary weapon and compare the CA damage tooltip to see it unchanged (unless it has bonuses like I describe next). Place the weapon back and see it still unchanged (damage types on the CA as well). Switch them and repeat the process. You'll see that there are no alterations to the CA damage unless when you switch the weapons of place. Now place a piece of gear that boosts Tactics Lore or a weapon skill you're using, and notice how the base damage of the weapons is raised but the CA damage is raised less than that. That's because it's now accounting for the primary weapon plus the added damage bonus from the gear bonus (sorry for the redundancy here).

I've tested it and it's precisely like this, no matter what type of weapon you equip. So that's that. Sorry if it sounds confusing but I'm writing this down with one eye open.

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On 1/4/2018 at 6:35 AM, Androdion said:

Yeah, I kind of double posted but discussion about this can be had here. ;)

You have to account one thing in that scenario, and that is innate damage types on weapons. If you have a weapon that has physical and ice, and you socket it with a chunk of lava, you'll have the possibility for open wounds/freeze/burn with that weapon. So those detrimental effects still apply, even though the damage caused by the CA is based on the prevalent damage types on the weapon. Now imagine a weapon with ice in right hand and another with fire in the left, the CA will cause physical+ice damage. The possible detrimental effects though are those that are present in both weapons, it's kind of a "global bonus" like life leech. This is best seen if you use a dual wield with staff+sword. You'll see that when you cast, say Frenzied Rampage, the staff shoots projectiles according to its elemental damage despite of what the secondary weapon's damage types are.

Picking up on your example, causing fire damage isn't the same as causing enemies to burn. That is, damage has five types and each one causes (or not) one type of detrimental effects. But those aren't directly related to the CA but rather to the damage that was dealt. And each time that elemental damage is dealt a secondary effect (burn in case of fire damage) can also be triggered. So again, if you have different elemental damage types on you dual wield weapons you'll still have the possibility to cause detrimental (read, secondary) effects based on those damage types. Hope that clears it out. ;)

In respect to the damage calculation do the following. Strip your toon naked, insert dual wield weapons. Now take the secondary weapon and compare the CA damage tooltip to see it unchanged (unless it has bonuses like I describe next). Place the weapon back and see it still unchanged (damage types on the CA as well). Switch them and repeat the process. You'll see that there are no alterations to the CA damage unless when you switch the weapons of place. Now place a piece of gear that boosts Tactics Lore or a weapon skill you're using, and notice how the base damage of the weapons is raised but the CA damage is raised less than that. That's because it's now accounting for the primary weapon plus the added damage bonus from the gear bonus (sorry for the redundancy here).

I've tested it and it's precisely like this, no matter what type of weapon you equip. So that's that. Sorry if it sounds confusing but I'm writing this down with one eye open.

It sounds very clear for me, non-native speaker:agreed: I did not know that secondary effects are "global" as you said.Sadly I am unable to test your assumptions, since I need for this weapon with pure damage of type A(preferrebly without bonuses) and some boss who is immune or close to be immune to the damage type A, then I can flip this weapon with another which has damage types B and C asnd see the difference while using combat arts, alas, I have no such setup. You said "I've tested it ", may I hope that you have been doing tests similar to what I have just described? Since, if you are right, I should not care about damage and damage type in left hand, it must have neat bonuses and many damage types for different secondary effects intead. Planning to create some serious dual wielder in the future, so it would be nice to know such things:agreed:

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I'm running a dual wield SW for some time now (ever since CM Patch 1.60 began development), with a weapon configuration of magic staff+sword/axe/whatever. Previous to 1.60 the magic staves would only shoot projectiles with weapon skill mastery, but with 1.60 that ability is unlocked from the start so you can use a magic staff like any other ranged weapon. The funny aspect of it is that a magic staff will in practical terms act as a melee weapon, so it can be dual wielded or used with other one-handed weapons in a dual wield scenario. It's not a real melee weapon though as it acts as a ranged weapon by shooting a projectile, and that's true for even being in close range (it never hits in melee, it just shoots a projectile in close range).

So what does this all mean? It means that if you're dual wielding a magic staff with any other weapon, and the magic staff is in your right hand (this is imperative!), you'll be able to shoot projectiles when casting CAs. Add to this a CA with multiple hits like Pelting Strikes or Frenzied Rampage and you'll see a barrage of projectiles being shot at the targeted enemies. If you're playing a SW mod FR twice for double attacks and you'll be able to shoot around twenty projectiles (!) with this weapon configuration.

Now for the question at hand, which is damage types and all that. If you use the described configuration you'll see that the tooltip of FR shows only the damage type of the weapon on your right hand, and if it's a staff and you cast it you'll notice that it will only shoot projectiles of that specific elemental damage (they're colour coded: yellow=physical, orange=fire, dark blue=magic, green=poison, light cyan=ice). That's the best way to notice it in practical terms. And if you're going against a boss with a heavy resistance you'll just need to switch the weapon slots and have the elemental damage changed according to your primary weapon. Then cast the CA again and you'll see the new colour on the projectiles. ;)

From my experience in the main campaign you don't really need anything more than two weapon slots, one with fire in the primary weapon and the other with ice. Mainly because 90% of the enemies in the path of the main quest are either weak against one or the other. There are some exceptions here and there but nothing that justifies it in my view. Unless you're playing with, say, Damage Lore and your plan is to kill by DOT. In that case it's best to invest in a primary weapon with Poison since it causes extra damage.

Regarding secondary effects, yeah, they're exactly that. You basically have five damage channels and you micromanage in order to use the ones the enemies are less resistant to, and when they hit they have the chance to cause extra DOT which is related to the damage channel being used. Fire and Poison are the ones which cause more damage, while Magic and Ice act more in terms of debuffing (lowers attributes, slows them down). Physical damage causes Open Wounds, which is known as "bleeding" in the RPG universe.

Hope this was helpful. :)

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3 hours ago, Androdion said:

I'm running a dual wield SW for some time now (ever since CM Patch 1.60 began development), with a weapon configuration of magic staff+sword/axe/whatever. Previous to 1.60 the magic staves would only shoot projectiles with weapon skill mastery, but with 1.60 that ability is unlocked from the start so you can use a magic staff like any other ranged weapon. The funny aspect of it is that a magic staff will in practical terms act as a melee weapon, so it can be dual wielded or used with other one-handed weapons in a dual wield scenario. It's not a real melee weapon though as it acts as a ranged weapon by shooting a projectile, and that's true for even being in close range (it never hits in melee, it just shoots a projectile in close range).

So what does this all mean? It means that if you're dual wielding a magic staff with any other weapon, and the magic staff is in your right hand (this is imperative!), you'll be able to shoot projectiles when casting CAs. Add to this a CA with multiple hits like Pelting Strikes or Frenzied Rampage and you'll see a barrage of projectiles being shot at the targeted enemies. If you're playing a SW mod FR twice for double attacks and you'll be able to shoot around twenty projectiles (!) with this weapon configuration.

Now for the question at hand, which is damage types and all that. If you use the described configuration you'll see that the tooltip of FR shows only the damage type of the weapon on your right hand, and if it's a staff and you cast it you'll notice that it will only shoot projectiles of that specific elemental damage (they're colour coded: yellow=physical, orange=fire, dark blue=magic, green=poison, light cyan=ice). That's the best way to notice it in practical terms. And if you're going against a boss with a heavy resistance you'll just need to switch the weapon slots and have the elemental damage changed according to your primary weapon. Then cast the CA again and you'll see the new colour on the projectiles. ;)

From my experience in the main campaign you don't really need anything more than two weapon slots, one with fire in the primary weapon and the other with ice. Mainly because 90% of the enemies in the path of the main quest are either weak against one or the other. There are some exceptions here and there but nothing that justifies it in my view. Unless you're playing with, say, Damage Lore and your plan is to kill by DOT. In that case it's best to invest in a primary weapon with Poison since it causes extra damage.

Regarding secondary effects, yeah, they're exactly that. You basically have five damage channels and you micromanage in order to use the ones the enemies are less resistant to, and when they hit they have the chance to cause extra DOT which is related to the damage channel being used. Fire and Poison are the ones which cause more damage, while Magic and Ice act more in terms of debuffing (lowers attributes, slows them down). Physical damage causes Open Wounds, which is known as "bleeding" in the RPG universe.

Hope this was helpful. :)

Yes, thanks, I currently have only one DW and I dont take her seriously - it's a test character, may be it will be support seraphim(she has both EP and bargain), but I am thinking about DW Inquisitor and it's a hard character for playing, so I must be quite familiar with game mechanic before creating him. Didn't know about staff, used blaster with pelting strikes and was very disappointed that I can't DW blasters - I liked this rapid fire thing:lol:

About fire and ice I agree - my 2hander SW always having exactly 2 sword - one with ice crystal and one with fire opal.

I did the same for Seraphim, but what has confused me - on Silver(43 level) - I can flip ice and fire swords and see no difference, even more - now I am running with magic sword and shield(simply cause it looking cool - smoking demon) and no seemingly difference in damage, no matter what mobs are resistant to:lol:(only the speed is slower but it's because my sword mastery << dual wield).

And this in combination with your information - leads me to the thought that DW is useless(of course, inquisitor and TG have no alternative), CAs are depending only on one weapon, while shield gives additional protection.

Anyways, thanks for the info - I will probably delete my DW seraphim and create a shield maiden, instead, if the story goes this way...doh.

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Well there's more into it actually.

I was just talking about damage dealt and damage types on CAs while dual wielding, but bear with me for a bit. You need to understand that this is only valid for CAs, as with left-click attacks the damage is the total of the two weapons and of all damage types present on said weapons. If you're playing with normal attacks followed by weapon based CAs you'll see that dual wielding isn't like you say. More to that, let's pick on Demonic Blow. It's a single hit attack CA, but with my staff+weapon dual wield configuration my SW shoots... twice. And the animation is as if he swings with both weapons. So if I had to guess I'd say that damage dealt and damage type calculations are based on the primary weapon, but, the CA damage is multiplied by the number of hits it executes and the number of weapons in hand. Which is the same to say that it's twice the damage on display when Demonic Blow is cast. Hope that makes sense.

One other thing. When you use dual wield the attack and attack speed values of the skill override any of those present in other weapon skills, so basically when you use dual wield and sword weapons you're just wasting a skill. Just thought I'd mention this. ;)

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56 minutes ago, Androdion said:

Well there's more into it actually.

 

It seems like there is MUCH more in it! My head is exploding, and I guess this game does not like when someone is trying to get into it's mechanic - it was designed for relaxing and non-serious playing, naturally, when the player doesnot care about damage and, instead, is full of sympathy for a skeleton, who has no healing potions:lol: I was rarely using any combat arts. Yes, on the screen info the normal attacks are twice as effective, but during gameplay, somehow, the difference feels like about 20-25%. And combat arts, well, blow is twice effective, like you said, while pelting strikes...like thrice.I have tried to put in the offhand a crappy 1st level sword and,yet, the difference in the pelting strike effectiveness between 1H and 2H was like day and night. After that I gave up on it - it simply beyond my comprehension!:lol:

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2 hours ago, lujate said:

For attacking DW completely overwrites SWL, but it still unlocks weapon bonuses. There was a DW Boneslicer build that capitalized on that.

Oh, by the way thanks, though I knew that sworld lore opens specific bonuses I didnot know what is boneslicer, now I googled it - and, well, this saves the character))

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9 hours ago, lujate said:

For attacking DW completely overwrites SWL, but it still unlocks weapon bonuses. There was a DW Boneslicer build that capitalized on that.

Yeah that's true. ;) I guess it will really depend on the planning you do with equipment, and if the weapon skill makes a difference there sure it should be used. I was just pointing out that if that isn't the case then there is an open skill for something else that may be more effective to the build. Both logics are valid.

Well Daniel, we all have had our heads explode because of the huge amount of information this game puts on players (mine still does minor detonations on occasion). It's a game that I usually describe as simple and minimalist, since all you really have to do is kill mobs/reap xp and loot/raise level rinse and repeat, and at the same time heavily complex and extremely prone to micromanagement given all its complexity in terms of build/skill variations/modifiers/etc. It really is a game that can be played with an open mind and in pure grind mode, or, a game that will have you do math all the way through. :D It's really the player's call how you want to do it.

There are some universal truths though. Despite the huge array of modifiers you'll notice that some will be used frequently on mostly all of your builds. Stuff like regen per hit, +all skills, +%life leech from opponents, +%chance to halve regen time, just to give a few examples of modifiers that are transversal to almost every build in the game. What I mean in simple terms is that you have a long list of stuff but you'll find that more often than not a small short list is where you'll find the better efficiency. Somewhat like MTG decks where you can have hundreds of cards but usually three or four combos rule over everything else. The same train of thought is also valid for skill choices. Though you can use this and that skill and vary a lot you'll still notice that you want to focus on some specific skills in every build. Case in point; focus and lore skills for the CAs you'll be using, defensive skills like Armor Lore (I don't think I've ever seen a build without it) or Constitution for in-combat HP regen or Toughness for all channel armour and damage mitigation, Combat Discipline for an easy way of raising CA damage and if you're using combos in your build, Ancient Magic for casters and breaking resistances at higher difficulty levels, Bargaining for shopping +all skills jewelry. Another universal truth is that the game gets harder with every difficulty level as much as it gets easier, because at the same time as the enemies grow bigger and have better resistances you too will have better gear and skills and better ways for breaking them. So it's pretty much a game of trade-offs and balance between the progression curve that the game presents you and the one you build on your toon.

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On 1/7/2018 at 4:28 PM, Androdion said:

 

Well Daniel, we all have had our heads explode because of the huge amount of information this game puts on players (mine still does minor detonations on occasion). It's a game that I usually describe as simple and minimalist, since all you really have to do is kill mobs/reap xp and loot/raise level rinse and repeat, and at the same time heavily complex and extremely prone to micromanagement given all its complexity in terms of build/skill variations/modifiers/etc. It really is a game that can be played with an open mind and in pure grind mode, or, a game that will have you do math all the way through. :D It's really the player's call how you want to do it.

There are some universal truths though. Despite the huge array of modifiers you'll notice that some will be used frequently on mostly all of your builds. Stuff like regen per hit, +all skills, +%life leech from opponents, +%chance to halve regen time, just to give a few examples of modifiers that are transversal to almost every build in the game. What I mean in simple terms is that you have a long list of stuff but you'll find that more often than not a small short list is where you'll find the better efficiency. Somewhat like MTG decks where you can have hundreds of cards but usually three or four combos rule over everything else. The same train of thought is also valid for skill choices. Though you can use this and that skill and vary a lot you'll still notice that you want to focus on some specific skills in every build. Case in point; focus and lore skills for the CAs you'll be using, defensive skills like Armor Lore (I don't think I've ever seen a build without it) or Constitution for in-combat HP regen or Toughness for all channel armour and damage mitigation, Combat Discipline for an easy way of raising CA damage and if you're using combos in your build, Ancient Magic for casters and breaking resistances at higher difficulty levels, Bargaining for shopping +all skills jewelry. Another universal truth is that the game gets harder with every difficulty level as much as it gets easier, because at the same time as the enemies grow bigger and have better resistances you too will have better gear and skills and better ways for breaking them. So it's pretty much a game of trade-offs and balance between the progression curve that the game presents you and the one you build on your toon.

I think I just get used to Titan Quest(and Diablo), where you see what you get - info on character and skills screen are more than enough for successful building and planning. Sacred 2 forces you to plan character beforehand, but on the other side most of game-stats are hidden, so you really have no idea what your character will be like. Praise the community, we can use wiki to find many answers, thank you gentlemen, wiki has really helped me to chose skills and mods for them, without wiki my characters would be totally random:bow:

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12 minutes ago, lacr said:

I think I just get used to Titan Quest(and Diablo), where you see what you get - info on character and skills screen are more than enough for successful building and planning. Sacred 2 forces you to plan character beforehand, but on the other side most of game-stats are hidden, so you really have no idea what your character will be like. Praise the community, we can use wiki to find many answers, thank you gentlemen, wiki has really helped me to chose skills and mods for them, without wiki my characters would be totally random:bow:

You have just made a few hundred people all over the world over the last 10 years smile.

Thank you for the kind and very respectful comments... E'en though the game is old, the Wiki and the ever continuing work of Flix et al and the Mod Team keeps life exciting with matching community patch and The Fallen mods as a first class balancing act.

Thank you lacr

:hugs:

 

gogo

 

p.s. course I'm curious with the comparsion to knowledge dissemination in TitanQuest vs Sacred with it's massive Wiki... is one format better? Would it have been better it the devs had not been so secretive with their so-called "secret formulaes" as they liked to call them? 

:4rofl:

 

 

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On 1/12/2018 at 9:49 PM, gogoblender said:

p.s. course I'm curious with the comparsion to knowledge dissemination in TitanQuest vs Sacred with it's massive Wiki... is one format better? Would it have been better it the devs had not been so secretive with their so-called "secret formulaes" as they liked to call them? 

For this type of game it would be definitely better, it's not a hardcore rpg or survival horror or something; besides it is not as forgivable as aforementioned  Titan Quest, in which you practically have no way to screw your character in softcore. At the very least developers could have made more detailed CA mods description.

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2 minutes ago, lacr said:

For this type of game it would be definitely better, it's not a hardcore rpg or survival horror or something; besides it is not as forgivable as aforementioned  Titan Quest, in which you practically have no way to screw your character in softcore. At the very least developers could have made more detailed CA mods description.

I empathize ... I cant tell you how much time folks spent with the first game in this series running to many test over and over, keeping notes and spread sheets, trying to "crack' Sacred... 

however..it was also SO much fun in those early days trying to figure out so much stuff with so little documentation...

heck in those days even forums were kind of a new "thing"

:lol:

 

gogo

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2 hours ago, lacr said:

I do only hope that sometime in the future some developers will notice how much time sacred followers have invested in this game and will create something as good instead of bleak and inexpressive games like new ones(Grim Dawn, Path of Exile, Van Helsing, you name it)

The only hope is Wolcen... but that hope "bleak" too. Everyone knows what is "Early access" - often very slow development with no full realese guaranty or/and most promised features.

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