Is Power Balance working as intended?

[cocopufff]

The Unholy Power tooltip says "Unholy Blight deals its increased damage to all enemies, regardless of alignment."
The spell does 1d6 + 8 (max 10) normally, or double that to a good outsider. I would've assumed that, from the wording "increased," this would make it deal the doubled amount to all enemies regardless of alignment (or else I'm not understanding why the word "increased" would be in the wording), but my testing with it shows it's currently only dealing the 1d6 + 8 damage.

Is there something I'm missing?

 

[The Blonde]

AFAIK Unholy Blight deals 1d6+4, not 1d6+8 to Good creatures. Double that to Good Outsiders, and half that to Neutral creatures. I'm fairly certain what Unholy Power does is make it so Neutral (and even Evil I think?) creatures also take 1d6+4 (and this being WAI). Due to the phrase "regardless of alignment", it's safe to assume that what's meant as "normal" is the (1d6+4)/2, and the "increased" being the 1d6+4.

 

[rabidfox]

The Unholy Power tooltip says "Unholy Blight deals its increased damage to all enemies, regardless of alignment."
The spell does 1d6 + 8 (max 10) normally, or double that to a good outsider. I would've assumed that, from the wording "increased," this would make it deal the doubled amount to all enemies regardless of alignment (or else I'm not understanding why the word "increased" would be in the wording), but my testing with it shows it's currently only dealing the 1d6 + 8 damage.

Is there something I'm missing?

The wording is badly written where it's hard to tell what it's supposed to do. It also breaks targetting on any mob not perfectly at ground level (like Memphits). You can hit them without points in that t5, but once you points in it then those AoEs will no longer hit them.

AI'm fairly certain what Unholy Power does is make it so Neutral (and even Evil I think?) creatures also take 1d6+4 (and this being WAI).

It doesn't (but maybe it's supposed to?). I tried all the spells affected (OrdersWrath, ChaosHammer, & UnholyBlight - I didn't test holy smite because it just seems to nuke everything already) by that t5 (a couple weeks ago) and creatures of alignment types that normally take no damage still take no damage with that t5 ability (had to respec several times and run around to find mobs that were taking no damage from those spells to test).

 

[Tuxedomanwashere]

It doesn't (but maybe it's supposed to?). I tried all the spells affected (OrdersWrath, ChaosHammer, & UnholyBlight - I didn't test holy smite because it just seems to nuke everything already) by that t5 (a couple weeks ago) and creatures of alignment types that normally take no damage still take no damage with that t5 ability (had to respec several times and run around to find mobs that were taking no damage from those spells to test).

The damage specifically doesn't seem to deal damage to monsters of the alignment of the spell you use that also happen to be typed as outsiders when examined. For example, even with the T5, Unholy Blight does not deal damage to devils, demons, or tieflings because they are outsiders and of the evil alignment. Similarly, Order's Wrath (when taking the mixed core version) doesn't damage devils and Chaos Hammer doesn't damage demons. However, those spells will damage creatures like Beholders and Mindflayers (which can be dismissed like other outsiders), because they are typed as aberrations when examined (this and the fact that tieflings weren't damage clued me in to the fact that it doesn't seem to be as simple as the game basing the damage on monsters that are profiled as dismissible monsters).

 

[Tuxedomanwashere]

AFAIK Unholy Blight deals 1d6+4, not 1d6+8 to Good creatures. Double that to Good Outsiders, and half that to Neutral creatures. I'm fairly certain what Unholy Power does is make it so Neutral (and even Evil I think?) creatures also take 1d6+4 (and this being WAI). Due to the phrase "regardless of alignment", it's safe to assume that what's meant as "normal" is the (1d6+4)/2, and the "increased" being the 1d6+4.

That's correct. Taking the T5 enhancement makes it so that all monsters (except for outsiders as noted above) take [1d6+4]/CL. Outsiders still take the double damage ([2d6 +8]/CL) if they are of the opposite alignment. Beholders and Mindflayers only take the [1d6+4]/CL, since they are typed as aberrations rather than outsiders.

 

[rabidfox]

The damage specifically doesn't seem to deal damage to monsters of the alignment of the spell you use that also happen to be typed as outsiders when examined.

It's very likely I tested against various outsiders given the level range I would be in (and didn't even realize it was only outsiders effecting it). Gotta love stuff like that. haha

 

[The Blonde]

Excellent findings. The big takeaway being this:

It also breaks targetting on any mob not perfectly at ground level (like Memphits). You can hit them without points in that t5, but once you points in it then those AoEs will no longer hit them.

 

[rabidfox]

Although someone should check if it's outsider related for that ground targeting issue too. In that case I initially noticed with holy smite when doing the 1st walkup quest in the demon sands that's got a ton of Memphis and that the upgraded spell worked on everything but them. Testing showed removing the t5 let holy smite hit them again. Others backed seeing that targeting issue at the time but given the outsider stuff tux posted, more refined testing would be good (just to make sure it's all mobs ground vs some weird outsider interaction).

 

[cocopufff]

It's also weird because the DD SLA lists higher damage for Unholy Blight than for the other three, but the regular spell doesn't... and my testing says the SLA isn't actually doing higher damage than the other three either. My guess is they recognized that Unholy Blight tends to suck so they were attempting to give the SLA more damage, but it didn't.

Either way, it seems weird to me that they'd say it's "increased" damage if it's actually just doing its base damage. Also as a side note, it really seems like there's no good reason to ever take the dark path of the DD, since the light SLAS, particularly that one, are just so much better + all actually scale off the same spell power.

 

[rabidfox]

It's also weird because the DD SLA lists higher damage for Unholy Blight than for the other three, but the regular spell doesn't... and my testing says the SLA isn't actually doing higher damage than the other three either. My guess is they recognized that Unholy Blight tends to suck so they were attempting to give the SLA more damage, but it didn't.

Chaos hammer and orders wrath have twice the cooldown length of holy/unholy (12s vs 6s). So using either of those is pretty much full of meh too.

The cooldown on those SLAs, targeting issues, Light and Dark only applying 1 stack not 3, and other stuff were things I brought up on the old forums; maybe this thread will get more traction to getting fixes/work on stuff.

 

[cocopufff]

Not to mention that you literally can't take the transcend option to get light spells as a dark DD... That's a pretty massive and glaring bug, and the dark tree in particular really wants those spells, probably more than the light tree wants the dark ones.
Even beyond bug fixes, it'd be really nice to see the dark DD get some love, it just feels really not worth it atm.

 

[Jummby]

Is this EVER going to get fixed???

Holy Smite isn't working properly and hasn't been for a LONG time.

 

[The Blonde]

This has been fixed internally, and will be in an upcoming patch. Thank you!

The Mephit targeting bug is apparently being fixed.

It's also weird because the DD SLA lists higher damage for Unholy Blight than for the other three, but the regular spell doesn't... and my testing says the SLA isn't actually doing higher damage than the other three either. My guess is they recognized that Unholy Blight tends to suck so they were attempting to give the SLA more damage, but it didn't.

Chaos hammer and orders wrath have twice the cooldown length of holy/unholy (12s vs 6s). So using either of those is pretty much full of meh too.

These 2 remain unfixed.