After reading through Spo's balance fu about notching down the invocation talent a bar, I got to thinking about how there's very little punishment for attacking someone who is invoking. That said, if the nerf even goes through for words of power, I think there should be a new subsection under Invocation called Reflecting Glyph - When attacked during casting an invocation you reflect back SR*5% (max of 3 points = 15%) of physical and magical damage. I think this is pretty fair and standard as you're still taking the damage and it's not a huge percentage. I am contemplating if it should be 30% but I think that's a tad high.

edit: After doing some testing with large numbers and invocations. I don't think 30% is too high at all actually and seems average with what you'd reflect back. I.E. I hit someone with a basic attack of at least 150-200 physical damage. You'd be reflecting 45-60 damage back (before resists) which isn't mind blowing.

Inside the church-like building located in Loyrwell Tombs, there's now a Blood Ruby gem laying down on its white platform. A crimson aura faintly emits from its body, something about it seeming... off, to say the least. One can only imagine how it got there.


(OOC Note: If you want your character to do anything with the gem, feel free to make a post in this thread and then throw a direct message my way in Discord! It's Fern#5298. If you don't have Discord but still want to contact me over it, you can also send me a private message in this forum.)

Ever since the Bonder rework there has been a few things that have stuck out to me since they were released. The first would be Sagum Ruinam while the second is Grand Finale. These two have been particularly underwhelming for what they do and rarely see use in the average build that utilizes Bonder.

Adaptation has a bug. A simple bug, so i'll keep it short.

When offhanding a dagger, if you equip a weapon that your current class can use then switch to a class that cannot equip that weapon, you can bypass the need for adaptation entirely and still keep your weapon since it doesn't forcibly unequip your weapon. However, unequipping it and re-equipping it functions the same.

As an example.

Start as DH/MG, Gun Equipped, Dagger Offhand.
Switch to Monk/MG , Gun stays equipped even without adaptation. Dagger is still offhand.
Fight a fight. It won't get removed forcibly after.
Switch to Monk/Monk, Gun still equipped, dagger still offhand.
Remove the dagger for MMA, keep the gun.

With that, you're now a Mono-monk with your gun without allocating a single point into adaptation at all.
This can freely be done and your weapon won't forcibly unequip as long as you have the dagger offhand, thus i've concluded that it is the source of the problem. Likely due to the nature of being classless to equip.

Edit: Adaptation isn't what's bugged but rather the fact you can bypass it. I added this for clarity as for I reread it and see how it may mislead some.

This is gonna be a lengthy one for no other reason than my own incompetence...

TL;DR
Needle isn't properly registering its level, the game says it'll deal damage and heal equal to half the original amount. This can result in an overabundance of damage and healing that's fixed. The amount of damage you do or are intended to do seems absolutely irrelevant.



Needle. A skill that shoots needles of light that embed into the target and then on the next instance of light damage taken, blows up and heals things as well as damages the one who was embedded. Sounds cool, right?

Only, as it's written. It should be exploding for damage equal to half the amount dealt as well as healing for that same exact amount.

However, using my powerful amount of testing, I have deduced that the damage amount dealt is irrelevant and that it heals at a seemingly improper rate.




My stats for reference. I shot needle at someone, and as it says. I should be exploding and healing for half the damage amount that I dealt, if I can read properly. SO.

I shot then shine ray ray as per usual.



31 times 6 is 186. Half of 186 is 93. So why was I healing for 150 HP?

See the issue here? This was within one range, so I thought. Detailed Cure might be buffing the heal. I accounted for evasion as well. However, I attacked them from a distance, no detailed cure potential.

Without Evasion, each needle would've been 40 damage. 40 time 6 is 240. Half of 240 is 120. Still inaccurate. Oddly enough.



The same exact result but no healing due to further range. Which is expected. So now, I tried with one of my own characters! Here were the results.



17 times 6 is 102. Half of 102 is 51. With evasion, each hit gains 5 damage. 22 times 6 is 132. Half of 132 is 66. Hmmmmm.

Uh oh. What's that? Different damage values...but the same healing and almost similar burst damage from the Needles. I figured it out shortly after.

The LV of Needle stays the same, likely based on your Light ATK and SWA scaling from the Needle Skill itself. The amount of damage you do is completely irrelevant, despite the skill saying you should be healing for half the amount you initially did.


Unsure if this is intended or not, but Shine Ray didn't do much damage yet the burst damage from Needle Exploding seemed to do 6 less damage. I only have 6% Light RES, but 60% Magical DR. Yet to someone with no RES and less light RES, it did 7 more damage. Does it ignore RES and such? Curious is all.

Beyond that, that's the report. This is why we don't praise Mercala. Damn Loli.



Steps to Replicate:

Heart of Stone's effect states:

Quote:Item Effects
Charm effects caused to you and by you have no effect.

1. Equip a Heart of Stone.
   
2. Have another player inflict Charm on you.
   
3. Stand next to the individual who Charmed you.
   
4. Swing at the inflictor on a different character, and witness the occasional martyr dive in front of the attack by the person who should be ignoring all effects of Charm.
   

Since the Invocation talent's been in place since the talent rework you're able to just straight up achieve 100% invocation resistance for the invested points and never have to worry over invocations possibly breaking ever again, I know it can be frustrating for invocations to break but I feel as though their powerful effects warrant it and give HSDW more usage as well as it can be used to assure the safer uses of invocations, it would also help re-balance some of the current invocations like Adon Graxis or Earthbound Vengeance again.

The riskier style was more one I was a fan of, instead of chancing things to silence which may or may not even work due to how many counters have been presented for silence (For a good reason, this is not against SILENCE!) you'll often see almost any invocation just go uncontested, especially with setup in play.

so if we just decrease the invocation's sub talent minorly we may be able to see those risk vs reward setups in a fight return, and give more counterplay to invocations beside silence again, I propose we take down the value from SR*10% resistance to invocations breaking, to SR*8.5% instead, causing 100 damage to equal a 15% chance of breaking an invocation, 200 = 30% etc.

It may invoke more thought into a fight this way as well, maybe you'll think "Hmm maybe I should save my big hit in case they start casting an invocation" and on the flip side if a Checkmate or Eclair is used without thought, someone could start invoking and feeling more safe doing it.

Firespitter mercenaries give experience to their master on detonation.

To replicate: Capture a firespitter, make it self detonate.

I haven't used this glitch myself, merely been told about it and asked to report it, so I'm not completely certain on its details- Anyone who's more familiar with it I would appreciate the input of.

Eternal Servitude, the new weapon that people are paying over 200k murai for. Clearly there is a reason its a very demanded item. Some people even paying up to 2000 asagos (20$ IRL directly) for one.
So why is this?

Certainly 120% scaling on a non tome weapon is nice, but that's not why its being used.
It has good power, but garbage accuracy unlike most polearms, but again not why its being used.
It has a PVE skill that's nice, more mercs means easier grinding afterall. But nobody cares about that.

The sheer issue is the invocation it gives.

Grants Skill: Adon Graxis - This Skill requires a Rank D Invocation (see Invocation talent for more details). Cannot be used before Round 2.

Unleashes pure darkeness on the battlefield, tainting all enemies with curses and knocking them down.


To summarize the list of absurd value it gives. For the price of 9 momentum you get:

On all hostiles:
Knockdown
-5 Str -5 Will -5 Skill -5 Cel -5 Def -5 Res
Unable to evade up to !!five!! attacks. (!! Hexer version is only three !!)
Unable to hit anyone with a basic for up to !!five!! attacks* (!!Normally requires hexer to be main class to use and normally is only for three!!)

The final two are basically insurmountable for most teams, negating entire classes and builds.

A very powerful invocation to be certain, and a huge value for one item to give. What's the drawback?
Nothing. Infact - You don't even have to slot hexer to make use of this. You get half of hexers skills for free as any class and two of them are BETTER than a hexer can do.

Now for the actual balance part. There are two ideas I've bounced around with people who have used it or seen it in action.

1. The most obvious solution in my mind, is to make it based on the casters current ranks in the skills or level one whichever is higher. Meaning if you aren't a hexer it will only apply the minimum duration and power of the curses while making it a valuable tool for actual hexers to use without making it useless for everyone else (The global knockdown on its own would be good enough, nevertheless fumble and masochism - note that fumble usually requires hexer mainclass to use at all.) - This would also in theory buff all the stat reductions to 6 and shorten the others to 3 max instead of 5

2. A less is more kind of change: Return it to 12 total momentum cost so that knockdown and the like are a viable counter to its casting and you can't use soul rage/boxer/fleur/etc to instant cast it. This wouldn't address its huge strengths, but would at-least tone it down a bit.

And there's a third more extreme option: Return the curses to its release state, meaning that they will pass whenever damage is dealt. So that its not always a good idea to use it in a team-fight since you'll be indirectly harming team members if you aren't careful. This fits the original theme in my mind as a unholy cursed staff of dominating enemies and allies alike and solves any balance issues instantly: Anything you're subjecting your enemies to aside from the knockdown can also end up being applied to your allies. If this path was chosen I would suggest making it a special version that /keeps/ swapping on damage.


In short: There is a reason this staff is currently selling for 20 USD / 200k Murai. Its not because its a balanced and unique weapon people want to build for. It has dominated entire team-fights easily and made one on one battles a joke for most builds. It definitely needs changed, either nerfed or given some drawback.

Note: Your entire team using cleanse pots is not a viable weakness or option.

In the necromancer fight, if you damage a foe that's been freshly summoned with a volcanic proc, many, many more enemies will begin to spawn, starting with an initial eight, and escalating to enough to entirely fill the necromancer boss room- And more, should you continue to attack, freshly summoned enemies replacing dead ones.



In addition, the necromancer will trigger black barrier again and again despite being far past his threshold as you kill other enemies for some reason. I've not been able to discern enough about that aspect of the bug. We've also only been able to replicate this happening so far during the phase when the necromancer activates demon translation, but I'm uncertain if that's necessary to trigger the bug.

To (easily) replicate:

Step 1: Equip a volcanic handgun, preferably paired ones with akimbo.
Step 2: Defeat minions of necromancer, dropping dark barrier.
Step 3: Bring Necromancer very close to phase change threshold.
Step 4: Bring necromancer past phase change threshold, activating dark barrier, with your multishot basic attack. On hit, volcanic will continue to proc, damaging any enemies summoned within 5 range of you during the attack.
Step 5: Eight enemies should be spawned around this time. Continue fighting, and more will quickly appear.

Credit to Laria and DerpymcPandos for helping me test this bug!