The Hit Spell/Damage Modifier Phenomenon

[Tuan]

This came up a few weeks ago when @hirikawa posted a picture doing max damage against a master. After a few weeks of trying various things, I've noticed some strange occurrences.

I believe no one will disagree with this statement as a generality:

When hit spell or hit area activates, the slayer Damage Modifier(DM) doesn't take effect for that hit.

There seems to be some exceptions to this rule, and maybe other people have seen other peculiarities we can collect here. For instance... maybe hit Magic Arrow or Harm works against something the same way that lightning works against BT masters ... and as you see below, Neira is her own special case with respect to slayers and hit lightning.

Hit Lightning against BT Masters.
When the hit spell activates, you seem to do double damage. I've noticed both with and without EoO this phenomenon.

Various inconsistencies against Neira.
It seems that Neira does not have a slayer... but it seems that slayers do more damage to her somehow? I wear the Conjuror Trinket, and carry an undead slayer radiant scim to clear the spawn levels, and to WW when Neira summons stuff. I also carry a broadsword with 50 HitLightning for killing bosses without slayers. The scimitar hit's her harder than my broadsword for normal hits. When under Consecrate and EoO, the scimitar does 35-40, broadsword ~30. With the scimitar when the hit fire area goes off, it only does 15-18 or so damage. When I do AIs with the broadsword it does the normal average of 100ish when I'm EoO; however when the lightning also hits on an AI, it does only 90% of the damage shown in my character sheet (~60). So, in this case, it seems that the hit lightning is setting all DM to 0. This case baffles me.

 

[hirikawa]

Yup Hit Lightning against BT Masters makes that place really easy. I would love to test some other places with Hit Fireball, Hit Magic Arrow etc, but it requires crafter and doing a lot of weapons. For example there may be some trick for Paroxy, Shadowlord or Night Terror.

 

[Klapauc]

Will watch out for those effects when playing the mystic fencer. Switching between hitspells is easy then.
But i believe the lighting vulnerability was put on the blackthorn masters on purpose, if it would be a bug it would affect all creatures and pvp as well .
Another place where it might work would be void pool, since a lot of the creatures there got no slayer even if that type of mob would have a slayer, and sky high resists in the later waves as well. Maybe also cora and exodus are worth trying.

 

[Tuan]

The thing that caught me most by surprise was seeing that with Neira ... it seems to work backwards.

 

[Klapauc]

The thing that caught me most by surprise was seeing that with Neira ... it seems to work backwards.

Neira has always been odd. I believe feint does also work backwards on her, as you do only half damage after that. But have not tried that recently.

 

[CorwinXX]

You get a bonus damage against BT Masters but it's affected by 3x cap.
My paladin had 80 Bushido and 95 Ninjitsu when I tested BT. It did max damage with EOO + Honor both with and without HL. But without EOO or without Honor I needed HL to do the same max damage.

 

[Obsidian]

Yup Hit Lightning against BT Masters makes that place really easy. I would love to test some other places with Hit Fireball, Hit Magic Arrow etc, but it requires crafter and doing a lot of weapons. For example there may be some trick for Paroxy, Shadowlord or Night Terror.

This is very interesting. I will try a new weapon and give it a go. Can you post a pic of the weapon you are using?

 

[Tuan]

 

[Lord Taliesin]

Hmm, I got some strange numbers when I tried doing Corgul a few months ago and I wonder if it's related. Given the tainted life leech that he has I replaced HLL with a hit spell and was doing 60 damage AIs with a longsword in spite of having Repond slayer on the weapon.

 

[Tuan]

Maybe Corgul has the same rules as Neira. Interesting. I wonder if it is ALL hit spells, or just one. I do know that hit harm doesn't have the same effect on Blackthorns Masters as hit lightning.

 

[Klapauc]

If i remember right , you need to kill all of corguls minions first, Otherwise, he gets a damage reduction from them that even reduces ai damage.

 

[hirikawa]

If i remember right , you need to kill all of corguls minions first, Otherwise, he gets a damage reduction from them that even reduces ai damage.

Exactly, with Repond Slayer + EOO i did 201 dmg max, but when spawn was unfinished i did only 134 max.

Obsidian >> Sword i used there was 100% Energy, 81 HLL, 81 HML, 50 HSL, 20 DI and 50 HLA

 

[Obsidian]

Obsidian >> Sword i used there was 100% Energy, 81 HLL, 81 HML, 50 HSL, 20 DI and 50 HLA

Broadsword, Longsword, or something else?

 

[Obsidian]

On the Corgul front, he has a slayer (Repond). You can hit the 300% damage cap with any of the normal ways. I've never noticed the damage reduction from killing his minions, but we always do the spawn first. Do be aware HLL and Vamp Embrace heal him.

 

[BeaIank]

That would explain why I always get low AI damage on him.
In all my runs, I have never completely cleared the spawn before engaging Corgul.

 

[hirikawa]

Obsidian >> Broadsword. Link to my template and weapons http://stratics.com/community/threads/my-setup-the-purest-paladin-ever.339685/

 

[Obsidian]

Have you only tried using the broadsword? Have you considered using a double strike weapon against the blackthorn captains?

 

[hirikawa]

Not yet, but without Bushido skill Double Strike might not work. On Night Terror it was useless with my template.

 

[Tuan]

I have 0 bush, double strike works just fine in general. I have not made a DS hit lightning weapon to try in there though.