The staff isn’t intuitive at all is the main problem. I made a video to demonstrate issues with it, as how it synergizes (or doesn’t) with things isn’t as obvious as one would think:
It applies a burn DoT, but it doesn’t? If walking through the flames procs Lingering Flames, but not Soot Shield, how does that make any sense since both are supposed to work from burns being applied?
The AoE is tiny and yet the burning can’t stack.
Lingering Flames completely guts this staff’s alt-fire, which you may not think given how fast it can do damage normally in comparison.
Why would Volcanic Force (50% more damage on full charge) do damage so close to Famished Flames(150% more burn damage but 30% less damage from all other sources)?
So famished and Volcanic both don’t do anything? O_O. Lingering does work though yeah? How bizarre. I think it’s way way better on Pyro anyway but I hope we can get some explanation for these strange dot mechanics.
Edit: just remembered that the dot does show as different for volcanic and famished when used on dummies in the keep, but your test shows it’s unaltered on real enemies… I’m so confused how this works.
Being unintuitive aside, I am pretty sure that all of these decisions are either bugs or simply balance decisions. The RMB of the Coruscation staff is insanely strong. On Cataclysm it can kill each enemy (don’t pin me on this, have to test again, but it seemed so yesterday) bar monsters and Chaos Warriors if you keep them in the geysir. Use chokepoints effectively and you can do some real damage. Works well, if you have some stagger power in the team.
Stacking is pretty sure deactivated by design. Because with this much damage, you could simply stack three geysirs and magmatize everything running through. The same if volcanic force or famished would work on it (although I keep this as potential bug in mind). Not sure on Soot shield as there are ways to keep it up unlimited already.
From a technical standpoint it seems that the first dot is different then subsequent maybe due to some kind of overwrite mechanic of the different dots. All in all, I pretty much don’t care about this because the staff is interesting, has great damage on the RMB and most important no stupid skulls in ANY of his cosmetics. That alone is a good reason to use it over Conflagration (although no stagger is pretty evil when you are used to it otherwise). For all I care it can and should stay like it currently is, even if unintuitive.
I do care however if it works with Enfeebling Flames No idea how to test that one though.
On unrelated note: Anyone else had issues with testing in the keep? I started a Cataclysm game, left it and the spawned enemies in the keep afterwards were to weak for Cataclysm.
Open a portal for the difficulty you want to test and leave it open. Enemies spawned will be that difficulty (doesn’t retroactively change existing enemies). Don’t need to join/leave games or anything. That’s why you see the bubble open in my video.
When I test it volcanic force seems to do more damage than famished flames if you hit them with the geyser. Try spawning two minos at once on recruit. Famished flames does more DOT if you just light them with the edge of the geyser.
The damage is close because the AoE damage is not burn but it also applies a burn.
I think we gotta double down on that point. @OenKrad You maybe want to change the category from feedback to bugs, a definite answer to how it does/should behave would be nice.
Did you test putting the geyser straight on them vs them walking through it? Since one procs soot shield and the other doesn’t I wonder if there are also differences in how the two situations interact with Famished and Volcanic. It’s still so weird to be that it seems to work as you’d expect on dummies but not real enemies. It’s usually the reverse of that if anything. Not doubting your test, mind, still just very weirded out by how this staff currently seems to be functioning. Unintuitive would be an understatement.
Edit: Also has anyone tested crits? The alt fire procs heat sink but no idea if they do anything at all to its damage.
I’m developing a love hate relationship with this weapon. I don’t really know what damage it’s doing, but it’s doing a lot of it. Everyone in my group who’s used it hates it, but the score screen is stacked on their end because a well placed geyser is doing work. So, now I know I wasn’t stacking geysers, I was just prolonging how much damage it was doing.
I guess the reason it seems to not work with Battle Wizard’s talents is because its DoT is completely different from her other staff’s?
Yeah I don’t love the playstyle with BW, but I do think it’s a heap of fun with Pyro if you basically just treat it like a shotgun and spam primary fire, saving the alt fire for occasional moments you’ve got a particularly good funnel point.
This is also my guess, though it proccing soot shield on the initial hit but not when enemies run through it is hard to explain.
Famished and Volcanic works… kinda. It’s very wonky.
Volcanic does affect the geysers power, it appears to work as intended for the most part.
Famished does not affect the geyser (at least from testing it doesn’t appear to do so) but rather the residing dot after the geyser dissipates and/or the AOE cast dot. The AOE cast dot can stack but the actual geysers can’t.
(This is all rough testing, I don’t know how the staff actually works.)
I thought about it, but some of it seems it might be intentional and some of it doesn’t. Hard to say without a dev chiming in. I added bug in there too now.
First off, I really like the staff and that it does not have the usual overpowered issues due to Broken Wizards talent. That said, I would like to iterate on
Can’t really comment on Volcanic but Famished Flames does indeed function as it should as well as Lingering Flames. Here my theory:
The staff consists of two damage sources which count however as one attack: direct damage and a fire dot, both self-refreshing.
the fire dot has a low tick (_) as well as a high tick (-) damage AND a small initial delay (o) in the form o _ _ _ - _ _ _ - _ _ _ - or similar
the fire dot refreshs globally, so that even burning enemies not longer in the geysir still get the the dot-refresh so that they burn but don’t get damage
This explains the behaviour of Famished Flames as the dot after the geysir end HAS increased damage by 150 %. But while the geysir is active it is refreshed continuously starting with the delay. The delay is solely there to counter Famished Flames. It is intentional.
Lingering Flames does work as intended as well. It does suffer under the refresh as well and usually starts getting the low tick damage after the geysir stops. However, the first initial geysir attack seems also to activate Lingering Flame.
For Volcanic Force it is hard to tell but I think that only the initial damage is affected by it while all subsequent damage effects due to the refresh are not affected by it anymore. Also seems intentional to me. For both Lingering and Volcanic it does seem that the first eruption is different from subsequent.
It looks like there has been put some effort in making sure that both Famished Flames as well as Volcanic Force do not create super-synergy with the staff in order to avoid it being broken on Broken Wizard.
I am not quite sure how to explain the behaviour of Soot Shield. I would guess Soot Shield does only activate if the igniting attack does no damage (delay) it does not activate even when subsequent dots start doing damage. Would explain why it only activates from the first eruption which is different.
But yea. Most of this seems to be intentional to guarantee that enemies are burning without creating the synergies with Battle Wizards. That may seem unfair but is very very likely a balance decision.
IF it is a bug then it is within the difference of the first and subsequent eruptions as well as the global refreshing. However, the delay only makes sense from a technical standpoint if someone wanted purposefully avoid Famish Flames and Lingering Flames triggering all the time which would also need the global refresh.
If it is intentional then we have a row where two out of 3 options are arguably a net negative, and the last option has negligible impact. And it’s very very hard as an average player to have any idea how these actually interact
Balance? Yeah if this is intentional then I strongly, strongly disagree with how they’ve gone about it. Could it possibly be less intuitive than it is now? I doubt it.
@FatsharkJulia we’re really just taking shots in the dark here unless someone on your end lets us know whether or not any of this is a bug
No idea how to test that one though.