Soul Puppet damage Bug/exploit... or is it? Damage Spikes explained!

denvald · July 2015

Hello eveyrone today we're tackling the soul puppet wicked damage spikes you've probably seen in dungeons. I've seen (but not recorded sadly) damages up to 3.5million every 2 seconds. This is how crazy it is.

I've been trying to figure the source of this bug since mod 6 came out and I have a very good idea of how it happens trough alot of self testing (I main this class, so I've played alot with it). There's two things going on...

The first thing explanation:
Your soul puppet uses your score of armor pen, and your stats affects the soul puppet damage. Meaning if you have 20k power your soul puppet will deal more than than if you had 10k (Weapon damage included).
You soul puppet is also physicly on the map. So if a friendly cleric comes near and buffs you with an AoE buff, both you and the soul puppet are affected. Meaning the soul puppet actually benefits twice from buffs (This is also true for companions besides augments). If your stats are buffed so are the soul puppet's, and he also gains the affect applied to it as well, for a double result.

Next up, let's look at those two tooltips. Desecration is the damnation capstone and soul puppet is the basic power in the powers list at the top.

The second explanation:
So a soul puppet already created gains 20% increased damage every time someone tries to resummon a soul puppet.
Damnation warlocks consume the feat to summon a soul puppet every 15 seconds with their feat Soul Desecration.
Because the soul puppet boost lasts only 20 seconds, the power increase is often removed between fights in different pulls, unless the group is going fast and a little bit of luck - there's only a 5 seconds window when the buff can be re applied without losing it's previous stacks
If you, or your puppet dies, the stacks disappear.

Normally there should only be a maximum of 100% increase to damage since there can only be 5 stacks active maximum. I think this is exactly what's busted and there is actually no limit at all to how much power increase the soul puppet can gain. I do not think reasonably that double buffs and double damage could reach millions of damage. But 200k? Seems pretty legit to me. This is also exactly the reason the soul puppet damage spikes so much in long boss fights - the stacks aren't refreshed and stay active because you do not stop fighting.

So that's it everyone, thanks for reading
Cheers

casey0267 · July 2015

First of all thank you for trying to clarify this and for taking the time to test everything. Secondly I want to add that depending on the "Feats" that you pick and the path, the Soul Puppet's damage can be raised even more than what you have shown. Without actually going into my SW, I can't remember which "feats" I chose, but, I recall quite a few available that raised the damage output of the Soul Puppet by 5/10/etc % and when added to the many other feat choices you could definitely create a tank, with the damage output numbers being huge (adding in all the potential buffs). I truly wish people would learn to ask questions, rather than accuse people of using exploits, there being bugs and/or screaming/whining when they have never tried the class and have no clue what is WAI or not. I have seen many threads claiming this as being all of the above, including a thread that someone tried to explain why it's WAI and getting blasted for using exploits. I hope the devs do something about the "squishy" nature of this class (I am so glad I was able to get WoD done before this mod came out), with Mod 6 I had to semi-retire mine for the time being and I have not run any dungeons with any of my other toons due to the kicking that has been going on for various reasons (which is not my idea of having fun).

schietindebux · August 2015

My damnation lock deals zero damage going solo and the puppet also sucks running WoD and there is no big variaty in the damage it deals..about 8k as far as I remember
So in case i would buff myself as hard as I can, the damage should rise, same it should do if the fight last longer somehow? Did not recognize thtat until now
Btw meeting a HB damnation lock he seemed to deal even More damage than SB...due to ? No pitty no mercy vor other things
Take the most multiplier you can get, selfbuffs combined with strong group buffs from other classes like GF , thats what i would subscribe

quspiv · August 2015

Pet should deal as little dmg as possible, for the balance purposes not only in PvE but also in PvP. It should however be tanky and have decent threat generation for soloing purposes.

quspiv · August 2015

magenubbie wrote: »

quspiv wrote: »

Pet should deal as little dmg as possible, for the balance purposes not only in PvE but also in PvP. It should however be tanky and have decent threat generation for soloing purposes.

I disagree. There's an entire feat tree devoted to the puppet. Any SW on that path has to rely on the damage of the puppet to play the game. He's got little damage to speak of on his own.

doesnt matter. It could still be balanced around utility and bonuses such as "when pet is within "X range or alive" SW deals more dmg, etc.

For PvE. Pet dmg doesnt matter as long as it can hold agro and doesnt die.

lestyanandras · August 2015

Thanks for explaining. That make sense.

denvald · August 2015

teribad15 wrote: »

why i have feeling he made 2 alt accounts to thanks himself
hum......

This account isn't mine lol. These were genuine answers XD

You're right that I do have more than one account (because my first is capped character wise) but it's not that

Soul Puppet damage Bug/exploit... or is it? Damage Spikes explained!

Comments