Chrysanthemum Petals, Kunai, Divine Blossoms and Odd Behavior

[VerySexyGrammar]

In another thread, we've been discussing some interesting weapons and how they might function together. I spent a couple hours testing some things and I'm sharing my findings here. Let's just say some of the behavior I'm seeing is not at all what I expected.

Test #1 - Chrysanthemum Petal in the main hand, Kunai in the off-hand.

The Petal gives you a "Blessed" buff (+10 Accuracy, +100 Attack Power and +100 Spellpower) when you crit, so the idea is to crit as much as possible so you can maintain the buff on yourself permanently through the fight. The Kunai is in the off-hand because the damage penalty doesn't really affect it; its power comes from the Bleed debuff that it inflicts when it hits.

This build is pretty nice. Haven't tested it in the "serious" areas yet but it wrecks everything in the northern portion of the Frostwoods with extreme ease. Group of four Kitsune? A single Deadly Shadow attack is going to kill one or two and the rest are going to die from Bleed before they get to act (if a companion doesn't finish them off first). Because all my attacks are AoE, the Drider Queen is the only enemy that I can't dispatch super quickly, however since she acts multiple times per turn she "eats" both Bleed charges during her turn. Between that and companion attacks, she just doesn't make it to the 2nd round of combat.

The important observation I've made: crits don't just apply the buff, they stack it. If you meet four enemies and crit two of them, you'll get a Blessed buff that lasts two turns. If the next turn you crit two of them again, you'll be up to four turns of Blessed (it should be three because you consumed one during your second turn, but there appears to be a bug). It's very, very easy to keep the full buff up on yourself at all times. One time I ended a fight with 12 turns' worth of Blessed left...

Haven't tried a version of the build that uses high-Accuracy single-target powers instead of AoE ones (with only a single target you'd need huge Accuracy to get the crits consistently) but I'm guessing it would be viable, just not as good.

Test #2 - Chrysanthemum Petal in the off-hand.

Weapons in the off-hand cannot crit (EDIT: unless you're using one of the very, very rare powers that have the "Dual" tag). Given this fact, I had serious doubt about whether or not using the Crysanthemum Petal in the off-hand would trigger the Blessed buff. The ability's text specifies that you have to crit "with this weapon", so it shouldn't have worked.

Surprisingly... it did. Sort of.

Critting with my main hand weapon (in this case, a Kunai; I just switched them around) created a stack of the "Blessed" buff, except the stack was always one turn shorter than the number of crits. Crit once, the buff doesn't appear. Crit twice, you'll get one turn's worth. Crit three times, you'll get a stack of "Blessed" for 2 turns. Why does it work like that? I don't know and I can't even begin to guess.

Test #3 - Divine Blossom in the main hand, Chrysanthemum Petal in the off-hand.

Seeing how a single AoE attack with the Crysanthemum Petal in the main hand could instantly wipe out a group of somewhat beefy Imps, I thought I'd try this build due to the high Holy damage it would undoubtedly put out. You might have already figured out... it doesn't work. I should have known.

Light weapons can only be equipped in the off-hand if your main hand is empty or has another Light weapon.

You're using a longsword in your main hand? Can't equip a dagger in your off-hand.

Battleaxe in the main hand and scroll/totem/musicinstrument in the off-hand? You can.
Dagger in the main hand and scroll/totem/musicinstrument/dagger in the off-hand? You can.
Wand in the main hand and scroll/totem/musicinstrument in the off-hand? You can.
Wand in the main hand and throwing knife in the off-hand? You can't.

I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved that such a potentially overpowered monstrosity isn't possible.

And that's just with quick, superficial testing. I'm probably still missing a lot of things, mostly as to why things work the way they do.

If you have any additional information to add, you are very welcome to share it.

 

[Burnerbro]

One more argument for changing Blessing so it scales with the user's spellpower, directly or through a more complex formula. Otherwise it outclasses any and all other weapon buffs in most situations.

 

[MeiLan]

Seconded, or it could be retweaked to work more in line with the other buffs, balance wise.

 

[Upcast Drake]

crits don't just apply the buff, they stack it

This is a bug. It was brought to our attention a while ago but must have fallen through the cracks.

 

[Greyfox643]

This is a bug. It was brought to our attention a while ago but must have fallen through the cracks.

So, aside from this, everything else presented here in the OP, works as intended?

If so, I'm going to give this a shot. Swapping my champ from single target to multi target, and maybe running Arona/Azzy/AoEyoko with Healryn.

Because undermountain is no joke.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

One more argument for changing Blessing so it scales with the user's spellpower, directly or through a more complex formula. Otherwise it outclasses any and all other weapon buffs in most situations.

Blessing is really strong, that's true. The power itself especially because it affects the entire party.

The buff scaling with Spellpower... I'm not sure what it would mean for the power, but I think that would nerf the Petal quite effectively.

A character with high Attack Power but low Spellpower would get decent results from attacking physically with the Petal, and trigger a weak Bless. Assuming the basic Bless amount were decent (not purely based on Spellpower), the physical character would probably find the Petal usable.

A character with low Attack Power but high Spellpower would get awful results from attacking physically with the Petal, and would lose a lot of Spellpower from equipping it instead of something that actually has Spellpower on it, but trigger a strong Bless. Is this worth it? Probably not. Spellpower characters wouldn't want to use this weapon and that's probably OK.

A character with both Attack Power and Spellpower (high Strength and using Spellpower gear, a rather unusual combination), now... good results from throwing it, and a strong Bless on top. But you'd still want to be using your powers to physically attack as many targets as possible (or to attack single targets with high Accuracy) for those crits. You would need Strength, Agility, Willpower, and Cunning (temporarily possible with Drinks), and you'd need to be using Spellpower gear just to make the buff better (greatly lowering the overall power of your gear). Yeah, it would make it require a huge investment.

This is a bug. It was brought to our attention a while ago but must have fallen through the cracks.

Ah, good to know. It should still be possible to keep it on most turns, but it wouldn't be so easy to keep it on "forever" since just one bad turn means it would be off the next (and, with 10 less Accuracy, less likely to come up again). In this scenario the single-target variant of the build would be considerably more comparable.

So, aside from this, everything else presented here in the OP, works as intended?

If so, I'm going to give this a shot. Swapping my champ from single target to multi target, and maybe running Arona/Azzy/AoEyoko with Healryn.

Because undermountain is no joke.

While this doesn't affect the "good" configuration in test #1, I'm guessing it triggering when it's in the off-hand is a bug. The special effect text is very clear, you have to crit with the Petal to trigger its effect. It shouldn't be triggering off of main hand crits if it's in the off-hand.

Keep in mind I still haven't tested this is serious areas (and, indeed, Undermountain is no joke). Still very unsure as to how it would function against the Golem; you'd have a hard time triggering crits with the AoE version of the build (perhaps swapping one of the two Recharge powers with Sure Shot would be wise) due to having only a single target, and most of your AoE stuff would just not be very effective against it. Only saving grace would be that the Kunai's Bleed would be very effective and both Bleeds would most likely be consumed right away due to the Golem's multiple actions per turn.

As thing stand currently, though, I don't think it'd be bad. At the very least you'd make short work of the Imps, and probably do well enough against Kobolds and Hobgoblins.

 

[Prent]

Blessing is really strong, that's true. The power itself especially because it affects the entire party.

The buff scaling with Spellpower... I'm not sure what it would mean for the power, but I think that would nerf the Petal quite effectively.

A character with high Attack Power but low Spellpower would get decent results from attacking physically with the Petal, and trigger a weak Bless. Assuming the basic Bless amount were decent (not purely based on Spellpower), the physical character would probably find the Petal usable.

A character with low Attack Power but high Spellpower would get awful results from attacking physically with the Petal, and would lose a lot of Spellpower from equipping it instead of something that actually has Spellpower on it, but trigger a strong Bless. Is this worth it? Probably not. Spellpower characters wouldn't want to use this weapon and that's probably OK.

A character with both Attack Power and Spellpower (high Strength and using Spellpower gear, a rather unusual combination), now... good results from throwing it, and a strong Bless on top. But you'd still want to be using your powers to physically attack as many targets as possible (or to attack single targets with high Accuracy) for those crits. You would need Strength, Agility, Willpower, and Cunning (temporarily possible with Drinks), and you'd need to be using Spellpower gear just to make the buff better (greatly lowering the overall power of your gear). Yeah, it would make it require a huge investment.



Ah, good to know. It should still be possible to keep it on most turns, but it wouldn't be so easy to keep it on "forever" since just one bad turn means it would be off the next (and, with 10 less Accuracy, less likely to come up again). In this scenario the single-target variant of the build would be considerably more comparable.



While this doesn't affect the "good" configuration in test #1, I'm guessing it triggering when it's in the off-hand is a bug. The special effect text is very clear, you have to crit with the Petal to trigger its effect. It shouldn't be triggering off of main hand crits if it's in the off-hand.

Keep in mind I still haven't tested this is serious areas (and, indeed, Undermountain is no joke). Still very unsure as to how it would function against the Golem; you'd have a hard time triggering crits with the AoE version of the build (perhaps swapping one of the two Recharge powers with Sure Shot would be wise) due to having only a single target, and most of your AoE stuff would just not be very effective against it. Only saving grace would be that the Kunai's Bleed would be very effective and both Bleeds would most likely be consumed right away due to the Golem's multiple actions per turn.

As thing stand currently, though, I don't think it'd be bad. At the very least you'd make short work of the Imps, and probably do well enough against Kobolds and Hobgoblins.

This strategy doesn’t actually function very well against the golem because of it’s stupid high armor, crushing resist, and penetrating resist. Also because it can randomly stun the whole party there’s a not insignificant chance that your blessing will get eaten without seeing any use

 

[Kingu2]

Keep in mind I still haven't tested this is serious areas (and, indeed, Undermountain is no joke). Still very unsure as to how it would function against the Golem; you'd have a hard time triggering crits with the AoE version of the build (perhaps swapping one of the two Recharge powers with Sure Shot would be wise) due to having only a single target, and most of your AoE stuff would just not be very effective against it. Only saving grace would be that the Kunai's Bleed would be very effective and both Bleeds would most likely be consumed right away due to the Golem's multiple actions per turn.

As thing stand currently, though, I don't think it'd be bad. At the very least you'd make short work of the Imps, and probably do well enough against Kobolds and Hobgoblins.

the golem is immune to bleed unfortunately so the kunai is a lot worse against it and all ghost and construct enemies. The golem still really isn't worth fighting at all and it's better to runaway or surrender.

as an aside I would suggest trying out the balanced blade, the flame dagger and the sanc. gladius instead of the kunai or petal.

This strategy doesn’t actually function very well against the golem because of it’s stupid high armor, crushing resist, and penetrating resist. Also because it can randomly stun the whole party there’s a not insignificant chance that your blessing will get eaten without seeing any use

the golem actually has bad crushing resist as well as freeze resist. Winter knight Brint actually does great damage against it and preforms really well in the undermountain overall though I still don't bother fighting the golem.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

This strategy doesn’t actually function very well against the golem because of it’s stupid high armor, crushing resist, and penetrating resist. Also because it can randomly stun the whole party there’s a not insignificant chance that your blessing will get eaten without seeing any use

Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought. I figured only the Holy damage and Bleed would do anything against it. Actually thought the Bleed would be great because it ignores Armor, but apparently:

the golem is immune to bleed unfortunately so the kunai is a lot worse against it and all ghost and construct enemies. The golem still really isn't worth fighting at all and it's better to runaway or surrender.

as an aside I would suggest trying out the balanced blade, the flame dagger and the sanc. gladius instead of the kunai or petal.

the golem actually has bad crushing resist as well as freeze resist. Winter knight Brint actually does great damage against it and preforms really well in the undermountain overall though I still don't bother fighting the golem.

Bleed immunity is real, real bad. Only the 20 Holy damage on the Petal would do anything significant and that's just not much.

The Golem is such an annoying encounter. It's a hardblock to multiple builds (including Resolve combat parties in their entirety) and cannot be prepared for because it's random. Indeed, I think the best way to deal with it is just to run.

Or just use a boring "standard" build with no gimmicks. Equip Galon's Griefmaker, hit things really hard, move on.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Bad news. I took it into Undermountain, and... it's not great.

It's very effective against Imps. The Holy damage hits them pretty hard, I usually crit two or three, and the rest die from Brienne's Cleave or the Bleed.

It's... semi-serviceable against Kobolds and Hobgoblins. They seem to be very resistant to crits. I usually manage to crit one (and only one) of them but it's not a guarantee. It does serious damage to them but they do huge amounts of damage right back against my group and encounters are far from easy.

As expected, it's trash against the Earth Elemental. I thought I'd replace one of my AoE powers with Shell Cracker (it's got +50 Accuracy so pretty high chances of a crit, and it sunders armor) but that wasn't helpful, the Elemental just acts through the sunder and the debuff falls off of it before Brienne can attack it.

Maybe if I switched Cait for healy Etheryn (more healiness) and Brienne for Azyrran (more Armor)...

 

[zagzig]

Wait, off-hands don't crit? Because I've been dual-wield warrioring for a while and off-hands definitely crit.

Dual-wield warrioring C. Petal/Kunai (Agl/Cun/Tou, Equanimity/Dual Blitz/Cleave/Eviscerate/Unbreakable) through the Undermountain, my strategies for the mobs are as followed:

Imps: Super effective holy damage
Miners: Do a lot of damage in a short amount of time
Earth Elemental: Throw Lyric at them, and have consumables and companions
Kobolds: Give them money (alt: Do a lot of damage in a short amount of time)
Hobgoblins: Give them money (alt: Do damage over a longer period of time, look out for the respawn)

EDIT: Added a screenshot of off-hand C. Petal definitely critting. Was not able to replicate 'off-hand C. Petal crits stack one less blessing than the number of times they crit', maybe you miscounted?

 

[Lone Wolf115]

This is a bug. It was brought to our attention a while ago but must have fallen through the cracks.

Man, shit always be slipping through the cracks.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Wait, off-hands don't crit? Because I've been dual-wield warrioring for a while and off-hands definitely crit.

Dual-wield warrioring C. Petal/Kunai (Agl/Cun/Tou, Equanimity/Dual Blitz/Cleave/Eviscerate/Unbreakable) through the Undermountain, my strategies for the mobs are as followed:

Imps: Super effective holy damage
Miners: Do a lot of damage in a short amount of time
Earth Elemental: Throw Lyric at them, and have consumables and companions
Kobolds: Give them money (alt: Do a lot of damage in a short amount of time)
Hobgoblins: Give them money (alt: Do damage over a longer period of time, look out for the respawn)

EDIT: Added a screenshot of off-hand C. Petal definitely critting. Was not able to replicate 'off-hand C. Petal crits stack one less blessing than the number of times they crit', maybe you miscounted?

I'll correct my earlier statement: weapons in the offhand normally can't crit. I've performed literally hundreds of attacks with my Kunai and it never crit a single time.

The only off-hand attacks that can crit are those made using a power that has the "Dual" tag. Currently that would be Dual Blitz and, indeed, Eviscerate.

However, you prompted me to make an additional test.

Test #4 - how do Blessed charges stack up when using Chrysanthemum Petal in the off-hand and using a Dual power?

First I tried it with the Petal in the main hand to verify that there weren't any odd behaviors. I crit on 10 of my 12 hits (5 with the Petal, 5 with the Kunai) and got 5 charges of "Blessed" total.

Second I tried it in the off-hand. Hit a wolf, crit only 5 of the 12 hits (3 with the Kunai, 2 with the Petal) and got 2 Blessed charges.

So oddly, using the Petal in the off-hand will generate Blessed charges from main hand crits (at a rate of 1 less than the number of crits), but not when using Dual powers (or I would have gotten 4 charges instead of just 2 on that 2nd Eviscerate). I did not miscount, it just doesn't work the same way with an ability that has the Dual tag.

Amazing. So many factors and interactions, I can never guess what's going to happen.

But I had to smile at "Throw Lyric at Earth Elementals".

 

[zagzig]

I did notice something weird - I triggered a critical hit with an off-hand regular attack (enhanced damage and triggering the C. Petal's special effect), but there was no notification. So it's possible you just noticed a bug where off-hand crits don't display properly.

 

[Blueboy]

For those who are looking to try any melee build in the undermountain, I recommend taking acid flask just for the sole purpose of taking 1/3 of the golem health and reduce it's armor. Can easily use your other 2 slots to wipe every other thing on the map.

 

[Burnerbro]

One day we will get some acid damage on weapons or a weapon buffing power, and it will be glorious.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

I did notice something weird - I triggered a critical hit with an off-hand regular attack (enhanced damage and triggering the C. Petal's special effect), but there was no notification. So it's possible you just noticed a bug where off-hand crits don't display properly.

Fascinating. It does looks like a crit (the damage is much higher than the Balanced Blade's, and more blatantly, it triggered the Bless), but there's no critical hit notification.

Could it be that, for the short time I used the Chrysanthemum in the off-hand, it was "stealth" off-hand crits that were triggering the Bless and not the actual crits from the main hand?

And for the better part of my playthrough (in which I was using two simple Daggers), could it be that I got off-hand crits regularly and just never noticed?

Thank you very much for pointing this out, this could be hugely useful information.

For those who are looking to try any melee build in the undermountain, I recommend taking acid flask just for the sole purpose of taking 1/3 of the golem health and reduce it's armor. Can easily use your other 2 slots to wipe every other thing on the map.

Interesting idea, I haven't checked what damage type Acid Flask does yet. If it bypasses Armor, it's a lot better than it looks on paper. It scales (very very slowly) with Cunning, too, which is one of the "must-have" stats for this build.

 

[Upcast Drake]

On live secondaries do not gain critical strike damage for regular attacks. What's happening is CPetal is rolling a crit, and then before we override it to not be a crit because it's a secondary, the Blessed effect is proccing. The reason it's gaining damage and looks like a crit is because currently Blessed is applied before the damage is calculated for the hit, so it's gaining the extra attack power.

I think I'm going to make it so secondaries can crit with normal crit rules, and make it so Blessed isn't applied until the end of the turn.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

On live secondaries do not gain critical strike damage for regular attacks. What's happening is CPetal is rolling a crit, and then before we override it to not be a crit because it's a secondary, the Blessed effect is proccing. The reason it's gaining damage and looks like a crit is because currently Blessed is applied before the damage is calculated for the hit, so it's gaining the extra attack power.

Hmm... so if I understand correctly, it's the Blessed effect inserting itself between the time a crit has been rolled and the time it's being "corrected" to be a non-crit. This essentially creates two anomalies (the buff appearing to trigger from a non-crit, and a non-crit looking like a crit) that unfortunately help camouflage each other.

Thanks for the clarification, I would never have guessed.

I think I'm going to make it so secondaries can crit with normal crit rules, and make it so Blessed isn't applied until the end of the turn.

Blessed not applying until the end of the turn is for sure the right move.

I think off-hand attacks being able to crit would make a whole lot of sense. Hopefully it's not too strong, it would be hilariously ironic if the "Balanced" Blade turned out to be OP.

 

[Upcast Drake]

Blessed not applying until the end of the turn is for sure the right move.

For sure. With the way it works currently, if you crit with CPetal as your primary and are dual wielding, both of your attacks on that turn gain the attack power bonus.

 

[Greyfox643]

Random related question, how are you equipping both?

I'm on mobile, and it just keeps replacing my main hand.

 

[Kingu2]

Random related question, how are you equipping both?

I'm on mobile, and it just keeps replacing my main hand.

both weapons need to have the light tag.

 

[Prent]

Or a shield. Shields always count as light for the purpose of equipping

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Or a shield. Shields always count as light for the purpose of equipping

Wait... you can equip two shields?

It's too early for my brain to be thinking about the implications of this.

 

[Prent]

Wait... you can equip two shields?

It's too early for my brain to be thinking about the implications of this.

no, they can only go in the off hand slot. Sorry if I confused you

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Ah, that's almost sad (there could have been interesting builds down the line when there are more Shields in the game) but it's more consistent with what I expected.

The way I've been thinking about it is... at the core, weapons always go in the main hand, and off-hand items (shields, musical instruments, totems, scrolls, etc) naturally always go in the off-hand. The "rule-breakers" are that off-hand items cannot be equipped if the main hand weapon is 2H (obviously), and Light weapons can be equipped in the off-hand if the weapon in the main hand is also Light.

There might be some other exceptions somewhere, still never 100% verified if that set of rules covered everything. It's just how things settled in my head.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Not super relevant to the rest of the thread, but I thought I'd mention it here because it doesn't deserve its own post:

I liked the Holy damage on the Chrysanthemum Petal so much (and hated taking damage in Undermountain so much) that I tried a run using the Divine Blossom in combination with a shield and high Armor.

It was pretty good! Undermountain was very manageable thanks to having high Armor, and the Blossom's damage being pure Holy meant that I not only still wrecked Imps, I also could put out serious damage against the Earth Elemental.

Oddly, it was in the Glacial Rift that I found fights a little tedious; Selkies and Avanai took very little damage from my attacks and it took quite a while to beat them, though Cultists were pretty easy thanks to the Holy damage being very effective against them. I did lose to Whisper once after he kept disarming all my characters and I just couldn't hurt him, then the next fight I crushed him... very random encounter, apparently.

I'm really torn between the Blossom and Petal. The Blossom having 75% higher Holy damage (35 instead of 20) really makes a huge difference. On the other hand the Petal's Bless effect can compensate for that (if you crit, which even with +254 Accuracy is not guaranteed in Undermountain), and being a Light, Thrown weapon, it enables a lot more skills (Blossom is ranged only) and allows more off-hand options.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Petal is better overall, but really the important part right now isn't your weapon, it's Armor. Things just hit freakishly hard now, I wouldn't wear anything lighter than Royal Leathers in Undermountain. Haven't tried Dark difficulty yet but it's probably nearly a necessity.

 

[Kingu2]

(if you crit, which even with +254 Accuracy is not guaranteed in Undermountain), and being a Light, Thrown weapon, it enables a lot more skills (Blossom is ranged only) and allows more off-hand options.

Okay I just have to point out that 254 acc. absolutely is a guaranteed crit, the only exception of course being enemies with crit immunity. if an enemy isn't critted by sure shot it means they have crit immunity.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Okay I just have to point out that 254 acc. absolutely is a guaranteed crit, the only exception of course being enemies with crit immunity. if an enemy isn't critted by sure shot it means they have crit immunity.

I was indeed surprised to see enemies avoiding the crit from that... happened a few times, I should have noted what the exact enemies were, right now all I remember is that they were either Kobolds or Hobgoblins. They looked to me like Rogue-type characters, though, no shields. Maybe I was smoke-bombed and they were Obscured? +234 Accuracy is still a lot, though... and looking at their stats on the wiki, they don't have more than 44 Evasion. Even with the buffs/debuffs it doesn't make much sense.

Ah well. If I run around that area with Sure Shot again, I'll take some notes. Without notes the data might as well be worthless.

 

[VerySexyGrammar]

Hrm.

I took the time to painstakingly destroy a group of Kobolds and two groups of Hobgoblins using nothing but Sure Shot and couldn't replicate the non-crit. I even cast Blessing a bunch of times in case getting the bonus over 255 broke it (it still happens to the best of programmers) but it still crit.

...and then I met a group of Imps, used Sure Shot (at +254 Accuracy) on "Imp Shanker B" (one of the 300 HP ones), and it didn't crit.

The only buff it had on it was Guarded Stance, which doesn't stop crits and doesn't require a shield, but... maybe it does have one equipped? I didn't know tanky Imps were a thing, but I guess it's possible.

I guess, if you learn which of the enemies are crit-resistant, you could go in with a Petal and Sure Shot would make sure you have the Bless buff up at least half the time... the crit rate on enemies was still quite low with AoE attacks, but I usually got at least one crit with them when all enemies were up.