Damage over time mechanics

[TouPoutsou]

Damage over time mechanics

I have a few quetions regarding damage over time.

1) Do they stack? It is a fact that on the tooltip there is always one DoT indicated, but if you had previously applied another one, is it still in the background doing damage, or has it been overwritten by the new one? If it's being overwritten how does it work? The DoT you applied last overwrittes the previous one, or the biggest damage dealer is the one that stacks? I know for a fact that if your weapon has normal bleeding chance, and you also have crippling strikes, the normal bleeding, if it does more damage is indicated instead of crppling strikes, but is crippling strikes still in the backround, or has it been erased. On the other hand, it seems if my weapon has burning chance, even if burning does more damage than crippling strikes, it seems like the next hit will overwrite burning with bleeding. It's very confusing, any help appreciated.

2) What are the differences between them, and the secret mechanics behind? Normally it feels like burning does more damage than bleeding, but bleeding seems to stack longer. Of course this can change according to enemy resistances. What's the deal with poison? Also even beyond DoT, what are the practical differences between stun, stagger and freeze? Thanks!

BTW i have 130 hours in the game, have finished it 2 times on Death March, but there are still quetions i cannot really asnwer.

 

[Exentryk]

1. Crippling Strikes seems to be different than the rest of DoTs. Crippling Strikes bleed does not stack with normal bleed, and is actually a pretty terrible skill as it only does 125 damage per second, compared to the normal bleed's way higher HP based damage. Apart from that, normal bleed, poison and burn can all be active at the same time. There is actually a trophy that asks you to have all of these DoTs active at the same time.

2. Can't answer this one. Still only level 17, and have only seen burn in action lol. Will get around to testing these things eventually. The strategy guide doesn't have any gameplay mechanic information. In fact, I don't think anyone other than the devs know these things. Someone will just have to do some hard tests, as I don't think the devs will be sharing anything.

 

[Costa417]

1. Crippling Strikes seems to be different than the rest of DoTs. Crippling Strikes bleed does not stack with normal bleed, and is actually a pretty terrible skill as it only does 125 damage per second, compared to the normal bleed's way higher HP based damage. Apart from that, normal bleed, poison and burn can all be active at the same time. There is actually a trophy that asks you to have all of these DoTs active at the same time.

Thanks for the tip, i was thinking about getting that skill

---------- Updated at 03:55 PM ----------

2) What are the differences between them, and the secret mechanics behind? Normally it feels like burning does more damage than bleeding, but bleeding seems to stack longer. Of course this can change according to enemy resistances. What's the deal with poison? Also even beyond DoT, what are the practical differences between stun, stagger and freeze? Thanks!

Burning does actually more damage than bleeding but for very less time than bleeding. Burning is good because it stops your opponent from performing any actions since they panic cos the fire.

Stun and stagger are similiar. Let me explain. When you stun an opponent he cant perform any action and he is stop dead on his feet, cannot move.
Stagger makes enemies unable to perform actions such as attacking or evading or parrying BUT they can still walk towards/away from you.

Freeze slows significately enemies (actually dont know if you can freeze them, but i dont think so) but that's it.

Poison works like bleeding. In the W2 some types of enemies were immune to poison such as necrophages. I dont know if that's the case for the W3 though

 

[mbaker51591]

Burning does actually more damage than bleeding but for very less time than bleeding. Burning is good because it stops your opponent from performing any actions since they panic cos the fire.

Stun and stagger are similiar. Let me explain. When you stun an opponent he cant perform any action and he is stop dead on his feet, cannot move.
Stagger makes enemies unable to perform actions such as attacking or evading or parrying BUT they can still walk towards/away from you.

Freeze slows significately enemies (actually dont know if you can freeze them, but i dont think so) but that's it.

Poison works like bleeding. In the W2 some types of enemies were immune to poison such as necrophages. I dont know if that's the case for the W3 though

Poison still applied w/ necrophages w/ certain oil, ability and runes. If you invested well w/ poison you got quite higher chance to applied this Dots than most Dots. Also it last longer.

Freeze also increase damage when you crit. Northern wind combo, any combat ability and critical damage deal quite a lot of damage.

Only Elementals beast like golem, gargoyles and etc are not affected w/ certain Dot but those Elementals are still affected by freeze and northern wind unless they have affinity w/ ice.

 

[Costa417]

Poison still applied w/ necrophages w/ certain oil, ability and runes. If you invested well w/ poison you got quite higher chance to applied this Dots than most Dots. Also it last longer.

Freeze also increase damage when you crit. Northern wind combo, any combat ability and critical damage deal quite a lot of damage.

Only Elementals beast like golem, gargoyles and etc are not affected w/ certain Dot but those Elementals are still affected by freeze and northern wind unless they have affinity w/ ice.

Thanks man

 

[TouPoutsou]

1. Crippling Strikes seems to be different than the rest of DoTs. Crippling Strikes bleed does not stack with normal bleed, and is actually a pretty terrible skill as it only does 125 damage per second, compared to the normal bleed's way higher HP based damage. Apart from that, normal bleed, poison and burn can all be active at the same time. There is actually a trophy that asks you to have all of these DoTs active at the same time.

Is that certain? I know that if you have normal bleed, the tooltip on the enemy health bar displays just that, but how can we be sure if crippling strikes still does that 125 damage underneath and is not displayed? Also is it possible that crippling strikes might overwritte any other status effect you might apply? I don;t know, achievement and everything, but i never seem to be able to stack various DoTs. If i equip 3 burning runes on mmy 15% chance to bleed sword, it seems impossible to burn the enemies.

---------- Updated at 04:41 PM ----------

Thanks for the tip, i was thinking about getting that skill

---------- Updated at 03:55 PM ----------



Burning does actually more damage than bleeding but for very less time than bleeding. Burning is good because it stops your opponent from performing any actions since they panic cos the fire.

Stun and stagger are similiar. Let me explain. When you stun an opponent he cant perform any action and he is stop dead on his feet, cannot move.
Stagger makes enemies unable to perform actions such as attacking or evading or parrying BUT they can still walk towards/away from you.

Freeze slows significately enemies (actually dont know if you can freeze them, but i dont think so) but that's it.

Poison works like bleeding. In the W2 some types of enemies were immune to poison such as necrophages. I dont know if that's the case for the W3 though

So then, what's the point of prefering stagger over stun? Maybe staggered enemies receive more damage?

 

[Costa417]

So then, what's the point of prefering stagger over stun? Maybe staggered enemies receive more damage?

I dont know. Maybe stagger works on some types of enemies that are immune to stun

---------- Updated at 05:01 PM ----------

When you get the stun on a enemy, he will remain stunned for a certain amount of time. In that time you cant apply another stun. Once he will recover than he will be vulnerable to another stun chance.

When you apply the stagger the next sword blow will have another chance to apply the stagger effect again and the next blow after that as well ecc.ont know. Maybe stagger works on some types of enemies that are immune to stun.

Stagger is better because I noticed that if r&g is good (or you have high stagger chance) you can potentially make the enemy to not perform actions for a longer time than the stun. Let me explain.

 

[IlluminatiEyes]

Is that certain? I know that if you have normal bleed, the tooltip on the enemy health bar displays just that, but how can we be sure if crippling strikes still does that 125 damage underneath and is not displayed? Also is it possible that crippling strikes might overwritte any other status effect you might apply? I don;t know, achievement and everything, but i never seem to be able to stack various DoTs. If i equip 3 burning runes on mmy 15% chance to bleed sword, it seems impossible to burn the enemies.

---------- Updated at 04:41 PM ----------



So then, what's the point of prefering stagger over stun? Maybe staggered enemies receive more damage?

The point of stagger is you can perma stunlock enemies and its really op with the spinning ability. But not all enemies can be staggered like griffins and bigger enemies with a giant axe n stuff so thats where stunning is better then staggering them.

 

[Exentryk]

Is that certain? I know that if you have normal bleed, the tooltip on the enemy health bar displays just that, but how can we be sure if crippling strikes still does that 125 damage underneath and is not displayed? Also is it possible that crippling strikes might overwritte any other status effect you might apply? I don;t know, achievement and everything, but i never seem to be able to stack various DoTs. If i equip 3 burning runes on mmy 15% chance to bleed sword, it seems impossible to burn the enemies.

You can try turning on the combat log and it should show you what effects are working and what not. I've read other users say that the two different bleeds don't stack. Crippling strikes override the normal (better) bleed, and is thus a crap ability.

I also plan to use the bleed + poison combo for my end game sword. I can only test this at that time though.

 

[ironhorse384]

Poison still applied w/ necrophages w/ certain oil, ability and runes. If you invested well w/ poison you got quite higher chance to applied this Dots than most Dots. Also it last longer.

Freeze also increase damage when you crit. Northern wind combo, any combat ability and critical damage deal quite a lot of damage.

Only Elementals beast like golem, gargoyles and etc are not affected w/ certain Dot but those Elementals are still affected by freeze and northern wind unless they have affinity w/ ice.

I use poison blades and it will proc on any creature provided you use the right oil to match the type of enemy you're fighting against even elementals will suffer DoT.

 

[Exentryk]

I use poison blades and it will proc on any creature provided you use the right oil to match the type of enemy you're fighting against even elementals will suffer DoT.

What about just using sword runes? Do those let you proc poison on Elementas? Coz if I can avoid using the poison ability, that'd be great. But if the only way to get poison on certain enemies is to use this ability, then so be it.

 

[mbaker51591]

I use poison blades and it will proc on any creature provided you use the right oil to match the type of enemy you're fighting against even elementals will suffer DoT.

Really i fought a bunch of Golems in the game and they never suffered any poison? I also got poison blade tier 5, superior elemental oil and greater poison rune. I think your talking about the wild hunt hounds.

 

[Legacy_Raider]

You can very quickly and easily apply all 3 effects by using a Broadhead Bolt followed by a Devil's Puffball and then a Dancing Star. I've used it to quickly reduce the HP of monsters that are way above my level (red skull). They all overlap but last for different amounts of time. I think bleeding is longest and burning shortest, that's why I do that order.

 

[ironhorse384]

Really i fought a bunch of Golems in the game and they never suffered any poison? I also got poison blade tier 5, superior elemental oil and greater poison rune. I think your talking about the wild hunt hounds.

I don't use the poison rune I wonder if that has anything to do with it because I've seen golems take DoT from poison blades using elementa oil. I wonder if the rune cancels it out?

Edit-I went out and found a golem after posting and couldn't get it to proc. i thought for sure I had in the past but I guess I was mistaken.

---------- Updated at 03:38 AM ----------

What about just using sword runes? Do those let you proc poison on Elementas? Coz if I can avoid using the poison ability, that'd be great. But if the only way to get poison on certain enemies is to use this ability, then so be it.

I can't say as I don't bother with the poison rune since I'm already using poison blades.

 

[mbaker51591]

I don't use the poison rune I wonder if that has anything to do with it because I've seen golems take DoT from poison blades using elementa oil. I wonder if the rune cancels it out?

Edit-I went out and found a golem after posting and couldn't get it to proc. i thought for sure I had in the past but I guess I was mistaken.

---------- Updated at 03:38 AM ----------



I can't say as I don't bother with the poison rune since I'm already using poison blades.

Just look at the bestiary Golems are immune w/ bleeding and poison.

 

[ace4sure]

Hey guys,

I started the game directly on the 2nd hardest difficulty and changed it to death marsh quite some levels ago. I tried to dig into this too as dots on this difficulty get very importent simply because you can't just hack and slay enemies. You do 1 or 2 strikes then dodge/roll to reposition yourself. Having dots ticking on your enemies while these down times is a pretty decent thing.

Since i havn't found any satisfying info about bleed and crippling strikes I tested a little myself to figure out 2 questions:

1. Does crippling strikes stack with regular bleed procs?
Yes, it does stack with regular bleed procs (at least since 1.08.2)

2. Is crippling strikes worth taking it?
Bottom line, yes it is, at least to a certain extend/level.
First reason is, it has a 100% chance to apply, so it's guaranteed on every strike. This comes in pretty handy with the playstyle I described above. Second the damage isn't that bad as many say.

Just an example:
I tested both dots on a level 20 Endrega: regular bleed 70 dps, crippling strikes 130dps, combined 200 dps
On an level 31 Arachas (Crab spider): regular bleed 480 dps, crippling strikes 130dps, combined 610 dps
(FYI: regular dots - bleed, poison, bruning - are % based on the enemies max Hitpoints (1%?) )

On this example you can see the pros and cons with both effects pretty good. If yo want to push even further: of course on super though bosses your regular bleed ticks for 1000+ damage, but you don't fight them all day, do you? Fighting a wolf pack with 10 entities regular bleeds won't help you much, the guaranteed crippling strikes bleeds on every hit (including whirl) definitly will.

The only real problem I have with crippling strikes is the fact that this skill has 0 (Zero) scaling. The higher your level gets its get outmaxed by scaling abilties and regular dots cause of the increasing hitpoint of enmies.
I like the fact that it works differentlly to other dots as it should be for a unique combat skill. But then it should scale with your Attack Power, e.g. (base_damage + X% * AP) / s

regards
ace