Llama makes a "shocking" discovery ;)

[Llama8 8]

I was thinking of making a Lost Fusion build TG given how everyone (including me) says that aspect is woefully underpowered (to put it politely), so I went into SP & did a bit of mucking about/experimenting with a blank level 200 character, and I made a somewhat disturbing discovery:

 

Lost Fusion Lore increases the life leach that Jolting Touch leaches (which as I'm sure you'll agree with me is just wrong, as wrongity wrong wrong wrong as anything can be!), but Combat Discipline doesn't (which is kinda odd).

 

So, what I intend to do is to make a melee/LF TG, using Jolting Touch as my champion/boss killer CA (if it works, the Leach mod is a % of health, so it should be able to do quite a lot of damage to bosses).

 

Skills:

Lost Fusion Lore (max)

Lost Fusion Focus (max, you want to be able to spam Jolting Touch)

Devout Guardian Focus (max)

Tactics Lore (max, shield mitigation & Derogate damage)

Hafted Weapons

Warding Energy Lore

Armour Lore

Constitution

Spell Resistance (probably)

Riding (probably)

 

CAs:

T-energy Shroud (Derogate, Recharge, Reflection)

Combat Alert (Barricade, Riposte)

Jolting Touch (Life Leach, Self-Repair (why not?), Flux (more pulses = more leach)

Deathly Spears (Gore, ?, Jab)

 

Is it going to work? Maybe. Is it going to be wronger than Gogo wearing pants? Hell yes.

[claudius 104]

Llama I am doing something like that only I am not using weapon attacks just casting spells...I got to level 48 I think...

 

2 Riding 5

3 Armor Lore - a few

5 Bargaining - above level with gear

8 Devout Guardian

12 Concentration

18 Source Lore

 

I had a hard time here. I was using T energy Shroud (modded) and Untouchable Force (modded) with combat alert (not buff but modded to reflect) for hard melee times. I needed to level a bit on kobolds until I got the Fusion Lore to use their spells

 

25 Fusion Lore (modded joliting touch for leach, amplifying discharge, and 1 mod in furious emblazer)

35 combat discipline (helped damage a lot)

 

At 50 I am taking warding energy lore and at 65 I was going to take Fusion Focus but I might take Source focus instead...

 

Jolting touch is doing like 70 additional damage from the leach I think:) Anyhow on champs I have 50 deathblow and I cycle JT, Deadly Spike, Primal Mutation (combo)

 

 

Your build looks more solid for hardcore, but mine is pretty fun gameplay! A change from melee...

 

The reason fusion lore increases leach is that the leach is not a flat amount with CA level. It is a % of the total damage. I think the wiki says 5% +3%/CA level. So at CA level 25 thats an additional 80% damage = sweet. Also to note is that enemies resistant to magical damage take full leach. So more lore = more damage and more leach. I think combat discipline would also work to get more leach but maybe the order is different (determine leach BEFORE figuring CD extra damage). Intelligence may also increase it (or not).

Edited June 19, 2009 by claudius

[Llama8 8]

The reason fusion lore increases leach is that the leach is not a flat amount with CA level. It is a % of the total damage. I think the wiki says 5% +3%/CA level. So at CA level 25 thats an additional 80% damage = sweet. Also to note is that enemies resistant to magical damage take full leach. So more lore = more damage and more leach. I think combat discipline would also work to get more leach but maybe the order is different (determine leach BEFORE figuring CD extra damage). Intelligence may also increase it (or not).

 

I'm not sure whether the leach is, as you say, a % of damage (like the leach from S1), or Sacred 2's % leach (ie, a % of monster health). Also, don't forget that that +3% per level will probably have diminishing returns. CD definitely doesn't increase the leach amount.

[Schot 407]

Aaaaah. Nice lil find there Llama. Thanx for sharing. Makes the aspect a bit more worth the while eh. Heh. Is the increase displayed in the tool tip or had you simply noticed while in battle?

[Llama8 8]

One argument for the leach not being a % of the weapon is that critical hits don't increase the leach. But, it was doing the same amount of leach against Kobolds, Wolves & Boars (Boars have twice the HP of Kobolds).

 

Not quite sure what you mean Schot. Both LF Lore & CD increase the damage for Jolting Touch (both stated on the tooltip & actual damage against monsters, as you would expect), but only LF Lore is increasing the amount it leaches (the % isn't given in-game).

[Barristan 14]

Hmmm,

 

nice finds... I'm interested in how your build works out Llama. Would be nice to be able to say that this tree isn't totally useless.

 

Greetz

[Llama8 8]

Thinking about it (unfortunately I'm at work so I can't test), it seems like the leach is based on the base CA damage + Lost Fusion Lore mod (still unsure if item mods will increase this, such as +% damage & +% magic damage) which is a bit of a downer from the boss-pwnage point of view, but the damage from the leach should be non-resistable, so against bosses & monsters with high Magic resistance (maybe even against the elemental bosses with their 100% damage mitigation) it should give a higher % of the damage.

 

I'm also unsure of how useful the CA regen mod is (Voltage), from the Wiki, it seems like it's giving a tiny amount of regen per pulse. I tried it earlier, but it didn't appear to be having a measureable/noticeable effect (level 73 Jolting Touch, at best it would be adding +9% regen per jolt, which sounds good, but exactly how that's added I don't know).

[claudius 104]

Its not % of monster life its % of the CA damage. So if you do 100 magic damage and 8% leach (CA level 1) then you do 8 additional damage. Then you put points in fusion lore and you do 150 magic damage. So now you do 12 additional damage.... Is that right?

 

I took the healing mod instead of the CA regeneration. With four pulses (flux) it heals 20% of your life which if you have 20,000 HP would be 4000 HP. With leaching on top of it you can leach hard hitters even with shields low. That mod is bugged I think on console to heal the monster.

Edited June 19, 2009 by claudius

[Llama8 8]

Its not % of monster life its % of the CA damage. So if you do 100 magic damage and 8% leach (CA level 1) then you do 8 additional damage. Then you put points in fusion lore and you do 150 magic damage. So now you do 12 additional damage.... Is that right?

Yes, but if it's based on CA damage, why doesn't Combat Discipline effect the amount you leach?

 

I took the healing mod instead of the CA regeneration. With four pulses (flux) it heals 20% of your life which if you have 20,000 HP would be 4000 HP. With leaching on top of it you can leach hard hitters even with shields low. That mod is bugged I think on console to heal the monster.

Yeah, it's fixed on the PC though.

[claudius 104]

Llama CD should raise it. How did you test that? CD raises CA damage by 7.4% with 1 pt. So 8% of 7.4% would be to small to see. On the other hand if you tested it with a blank 200 character and put 75 CD +300 all skills and your CA level of jolting was at 31 (=35% leach) then you should certainly see that.

 

It is possible that the formula is 1 Calculate damage of CA including lore, maybe intelligence but NOT leach. Then thats your leach % there. 2 Then add additional electrical damage with CD, but not leach.

[Llama8 8]

I took a blank level 200 character, picked Lost Fusion Focus (well, I put 5 points in DG Focus first) to let me mod Jolting Touch, noted the damage for JT & the leach ("additional damage"), then put lots of points in LF Lore, noted the damages again, then put loads of points in Combat Discipline. When I put points in LF Lore, the leach damage increased (IIRC I think it was maintaining the same % leach based on the JT damage, inc LF Lore), when I put points in CD, the Jolting Touch damage increased, but the leach damage didn't.

 

So yes, it looks like CD isn't used to calculate the leach damage (though LF Lore is).

[Llama8 8]

+% Damage from items doesn't increase the amount of damage that the leach does.

[Viper007 0]

I think they only thing that would increase this would be weapon or gear mods with life leech %.

Edited June 21, 2009 by Viper007

[Llama8 8]

+% life leach gear doesn't appear to do any additional leach damage, probably due to JT being a "spell" & therefore it doesn't proc leach from items.