Some "On Melee Kill" or "On Ranged Kill" effects do not trigger when enemies die from Damage Over Time

[ElevatorEleven]

Issue Type (Required):

Player Mechanics

Issue Description (Required):

I was trying out a knife and revolver build on my Zealot including the Sainted Gunslinger talent (melee kills increase reload speed) and a dagger that causes bleed on body hits, and I noticed that sometimes I would charge into a mob of at least seven or eight poxwalkers, kill them all with my knife, and then have fewer than 5 stacks of Sainted Gunslinger, meaning that some of those “melee kills” weren’t being counted. I did some testing in the meat grinder and found that if the enemy dies from bleed damage, it doesn’t count as a “melee kill.”

I was going to make a Suggestion topic about this, but then I did some more testing with other characters and discovered that sometimes it DOES count, so I think that means it qualifies as a bug, not an intended mechanic, at least in some cases. Testing with a veteran with Agile Engagement and Weapon Specialist and using a recon lasgun that ignites people and a chain axe that causes bleeding, results were still mixed. Letting an enemy burn to death from recon lasgun crit flames added a stack of Melee Specialist, so it DID count as a Ranged Kill for the purposes of the Weapon Specialist keystone, but it did NOT trigger Agile Engagement. Likewise, letting an enemy bleed to death with a special attack from my chain axe added a stack of Ranged Specialist but also did not trigger Agile Engagement.

So at least Sainted Gunslinger does not recognize enemies bleeding to death, and Agile Engagement does not recognize enemies bleeding or burning to death, but Weapon Specialist does. Others that I tested:
The Slaughterer Blessing on the Ogryn’s knife, Slaughterer did not trigger from bleed kills
By Crack of Bone with a Psyker and a Blazing Spirit force sword, By Crack of Bone did not trigger from flame deaths from weakspot hits
I did not test any other skills, but anything that triggers specifically “On Melee Kill” or “On Ranged Kill” should be under suspicion now.

A related issue, I tested Pious Cut-Throat as well, and bleed kills don’t trigger it even if the bleeding was caused by a backstab. Personally I think kills caused by bleeding from backstab hits should still count as backstab kills since the right side Deathcultist subclass track includes some bleed related stuff, and it’s frustrating if a backstab hit chops off 99% of a target’s health only for them to die of bleeding and you don’t get the backstab kill credit.

Some other possible offenders:
Zealot’s Voice of Terra and Vicious Offering (though not sure if kills from bleed applied from heavy attacks should count as “heavy kills” or not)
Ogryn’s Unstoppable Momentum
Psyker’s Precognition
Veteran’s Covering Fire
Veteran’s Marksman’s Focus

And come to think of it I expect some Penances might not play nice with damage over time kills either. Was this the reason I had so much trouble finishing Unseen Assassin and Behind Enemy Lines? And I vaguely recall it seeming like it was taking an awful long time to get to 5000 heavy attack kills for the Ogryn’s Onslaught penance…

Steps to Reproduce (Required):

1. Equip a talent or blessing that is supposed to trigger “On Melee Kill” or “On Ranged Kill”
2. Equip a weapon that should qualify but which also applies a damage over time effect.
3. Apply damage over time effect with the qualifying weapon to an enemy, but do not kill the enemy outright.
4. Let the enemy die from the damage over time effect.

[PC] Do You Use Mods? (Optional):

Yes, and I’ve tried disabling them

Reproduction Rate (Required):

Constant (100%)

Platform (Required):

PC - Steam

Upload Supporting Evidence (Optional):

[kuli]

Kills by DoTs are simply kills, they are neither melee kills nor ranged kills. Whether a talent considers an enemy dying to a DoT a valid kill depends on the talent.

Sainted Gunslinger and Slaughterer proc on_melee_kill and By Crack of Bone procs on_melee_weakspot_kill, either exclude kills by DoTs. Pious Cut-Throat procs on kills that are the result of an attack that is_backstab which can only be achieved by melee attacks; Vicious Offering procs on_heavy_hit kills which can only be executed by melee weapons. Agile Engagement procs on_melee_kill and on_ranged_kill, either exclude DoTs. Unstoppable Momentum, Covering Fire, and The Voice of Terra proc on_ranged_kill which excludes kills by DoTs. Psyker’s Precognition procs on_weakspot_kill which includes kills by ranged and melee attacks but excludes DoTs because DoTs do not target weakspots. Marksman’s Focus generates stacks on hits with ranged attacks against weakspots that kill the target, which excludes DoTs.

Then, Weapons Specialist is set up entirely differently (and admittedly confuses players frequently) because this talent simply checks which item slot is equipped when an enemy dies to anything in order to allocate the stacks to Ranged Specialst or Melee Specialist. Enemies dying to DoTs while a ranged weapon is equipped count towards Melee Specialist, enemies dying to DoTs while a melee weapon is equipped count towards Ranged Specialist; enemies dying to DoTs while a grenade, med pack, stimm, or anything else is equipped grant no stacks at all.