Lightning Enchantment (Weapon Enchantment) bugs and feedback

moonba · June 2013

I'm starting a thread dedicated to the Lightning Enchantment both to report bugs and allow for endgame PvE/PvP discussions.

The exact definition of the enchantment behavior is :
"You deal an additional X% of weapon damage as Lighting damage with every strike. This damage chains Y times at a 50% chance for each chain." _{(X and Y vary depending on the enchantment rank)}

Let's have a look at the different ranks of Lightning Enchantment :

Lesser +10% Lightning damage. 50% for 0 chains.
Normal +12% Lightning damage. 50% for 1 chains.
Greater +18% Lightning damage. 50% for 2 chains.
Perfect +20% Lightning damage. 50% for 3 chains.

Now let's assume you're a GWF with a sword that deals 800 damage on average, and you're hitting one of those Target Dummies in the PvP hall.

If you have the Lesser Lightning enchantment, it should add 80 (10% weapon damage) on every hit ONLY on your target (no chain).
If you have the Lightning enchantment (normal rank), it should add 96 (12% weapon damage) on every hit on your target AND have a 50% chance to "chain" and apply those 96 damage to ONE nearby target.
Same goes for the 2 other ranks, except the number of additional targets hit by the chain increases.

So now I will give you my feedback on the actual mechanics :

I tested the Lightning Enchantment (normal rank) and it applies ONLY the "50% chance chain" component on the secondary target (i.e. the "chain"). No damage is applied on the main target.

Now let's look again at the definition of the Lesser Lightning Enchantment :

"You deal an additional 10% of weapon damage as Lighting damage with every strike. This damage chains 0 times at a 50% chance for each chain."

Chains 0 times ? This definition is pretty cryptic (pun unintended) but actually means the Lesser rank won't deal ANY additional damage since this rank doesn't have any "chain" component. It is therefore 100% useless, except it makes your sword sweeps look cool.

When using the Lightning enchantment (normal rank) in a PvE dungeon, I noticed that the chain lightning roughly has a 30' range and ALWAYS hits the closest target to the one you're hitting.

BUT ! If you're fighting a group of mobs and there's a patrol nearby (not agro'ed), the chain Lightning of this enchantment WILL strike them and agro them on you.

Lightning Enchantment COULD be a very good choice for PvP or PvE endgame purposes, but due to these bugs it is safe to assume that it won't be a safe choice until fixed. I'll add some more theorycraft soon but as of now I'm positive that plaguefire is a much better overall choice.

Small recap' :

Lightning enchantment's damage DOES NOT WORK AS INTENDED on the main target.
Lightning enchantment's chains DO NOT WORK AS INTENDED in PvE and agro everything around

I hope Cryptic staff will notice this thread as I put some time and effort into it, and I also hope it will help other players that may wonder how this enchantment actually works.

Feel free to contribute if you have additional feedback !

EDIT : Lightning enchantment DOES apply the main target damage component, it just doesn't display separately like the Lightning Arc damage does. See posts below for precisions.
So damage does work as intented, but it still agroes everything around.

nukeyoo · June 2013

Cool that you tested, sorry for your loss of AD doing so. I could have told you from the tool tip descriptions alone that the only meaningful weapon enchantments are plaguefire and vorpol. Hard to top a defense debuff or increase in heal or damage crits.

bongstick · June 2013

There is a perfect enhancement? thought greater was final

nukeyoo · June 2013

bongstick wrote: »

There is a perfect enhancement? thought greater was final

Yup any of the regular weapon enchantments that are made from shards upgrade up to perfect. I've been told and have not seen any of the enchantments from nightmare boxes (tenebrous, plaguefire) upgraded passed greater though.

demonsunder · June 2013

The effect also can't crit, and the reduced damage you see it because of target armour/resists

On the higher version's (greater +) you also start to see strange things happening, lighting chaining to the same mobs over and and over but avoiding other's

Yes, its a double edged sword with aggro (you should see x2 greater on a TR with the Main hand bug) but its a serious DPS increase for GWF, I have tested all enchant on my GWF from Vorpal to Bilethorn but really only good for GWF and a specific CW build.

moonba · June 2013

Let's adds some theorycrafting to that, as promised earlier.

The Lightning Enchantment, like most weapon enchantments, can be divided into 2 components : the Primary component ("You deal an additional X% of weapon damage as Lighting damage with every strike.") and the Secondary component ("This damage chains Y times at a 50% chance for each chain.")

Let's use simple math to merge the 2nd component with the 1st one to have an overall damage estimation :

Lesser Rank (Rank 1) : 10% + 50%*0 = 10% weapon damage
Normal Rank (Rank 2) : 12% * (1 + 0.5*1) = 18% weapon damage
Greater Rank (Rank 3) : 18% * (1 + 0.5*2) = 36% weapon damage
Perfect Rank (Rank 4) : 20% * (1 + 0.5*3) = 50% weapon damage

The assumption we made here is that each chain will be able to hit enough targets to reach the full potential of the enchantment rank you have equipped. It might not always be the case, but in PvE AoE purposes it should be.

Now I'd like to mention 2 things :

1) The calculation made above is based on the intended mechanics in the enchantment definition, but as I said earlier the Primary component of the enchantment is not currently working. No additional is dealt to your main target, only the "chain" component is currently working.

As of now, the overall added damage per rank is as follows :

Lesser Rank (Rank 1) : 10% *(0 50%*0) = 0% weapon damage
Normal Rank (Rank 2) : 12% * (0 + 0.5*1) = 6% weapon damage
Greater Rank (Rank 3) : 18% * (0 + 0.5*2) = 18% weapon damage
Perfect Rank (Rank 4) : 20% * (0 + 0.5*3) = 30% weapon damage

As you can see, it is much lower than it should be, and I still hope devs' will notice this bug and fix it someday soon.

2) All enchantments except Plaguefire and Vorpal add flat damage.

I have the GWF CN T2.5 weapon, which damage is 805-984 so my Lightning enchantment (rank 2) should deal 97-118. (Actually the damage I saw were 101-123 on dummies).

It does not take into account your power for it's damage calculation.

That means the enchantment won't scale with the rest of your gear while Plaguefire & Vorpal will scale much better due to their stat-affecting component. On the other hand, it DOES take into account damage mitigation based on mob damage resistance : in T2 dungeons you will basically see figures like 50-60ish, which is half of what you can see on dummies.

For enchantment normalization purposes, it is absolutely unthinkable to have 2 enchantments that affect global damage while the rest deals flat damage... the global damage enchantments will ALWAYS beat the others in terms of end-game content. There's not even a shred of math to be done here.

This is a real loss of content : when the players COULD have a vast panel of customizations to adapt to their playstyle, they end up with a very restricted choice (either Vorpal or Plaguefire) because of bugs and a lack of balance.

For the love of theorycrafting, will a dev' look into this and fix enchantments ?!

moonba · June 2013

I looked further into the log and here's what I got :

[COLOR="#B22222"][Combat (Self)]Your Sure Strike deals 621 (564) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 134 (122) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 104 Lightning to Target Dummy.[/COLOR]

[Combat (Self)] Your Sure Strike deals 616 (560) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 131 (119) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 113 Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 121 (105) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sure Strike deals 1177 (1023) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sure Strike deals 2412 (2097) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 140 (122) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 88 Physical to Target Dummy.

So actually it's more of an UI issue than a bug : the Lightning enchantment dmg DOES apply on main target, but it's not shown separately.

If you hit a target, the number you will see in yellow is your normal weapon damage PLUS the Lightning enchantment damage. It is shown in the log as "Lightning Weapon".

The "chain" proc on another target is called "Lightning Arc" in the log and works + displays properly.

However, if you crit, the number you see on crit corresponds to your normal crit that you see in the log. The Lightning Weapon damage IS NOT ADDED to the figure you see. It is shown in the log tho, so I guess the game does take it into account even tho the UI is slightly wrong about the damage actually dealt to the target.

The log itself could be subject to improvements : sometimes the procs (Deep Gash, Lightning Weapon) appear BEFORE the actual strike they proc from... which may be misleading. More on this soon.

moonba · June 2013

The new patch today has brought a bit more balance in enchantments in a way : Plague Fire is no longer the only possible choice since multiple enchants won't stack anymore and it will remove mitigation considerably less than before.

Lightning enchantment could be an interesting replacement.

Apart from the UI flaw I mentioned earlier, the main obstacle in making this enchantment viable is the fact that Lightning enchantment is affected by monster damage resistance but not by your armor penetration or power to counter that. Remove your gear except weapon and see for yourself !

On the other hand, it does seem to be affected by mitigation-reducing abilities like the Student of War feat (GWF).

It also doesn't make much sense that it can't crit, espcially since the Lightning Weapon damage is added to your own damage when displayed... or at least it's supposed to (cf. previous post about crit glitch).

So devs'... either make this enchantment a flat additional DPS all the way (remove the possibility to mitigate the lightning damage) or a scalable DPS output (like Vorpal and Plague Fire).

fimconte · June 2013

Greater Plaguefire seems to be ~9% dmg now.

So if you have ~36%+ crit Normal Vorpal is better.
A Greater Vorpal is better at ~24% crit.

So instead of having two choices, we now have one.

desjardinii · June 2013

I was looking at this enchantment for use on a GF. I was thiking how the damage that arcs out may be a good tool to help deal a bit of damage to the mobs you have marked but are out of your normal cleave range. Hopefully that would pull them in a bit closer. My big concern with that would be pulling other groups because of the chain range. Anyhow, thanks for doing the legwork on that. Great post.

moonba · June 2013

I beg to differ : it all depends on the class you play and your role in fights.

An AoE-based GWF can find great interest in the Lightning enchantment as a replacement for Plague Fire.
Why ? Because it can proc twice per Weapon Master Strike (2 strikes per sweep) per enemy hit.

Let's have a look at a typical exemple :

You're in a T2 dungeon, fighting a pack of 5 mobs with a GWF. Your weapon is CN weap with Perfect Lightning Enchantment.

For each sweep of Weapon Master Strike, you get 50% chance to proc 3 chains (per enemy hit). So basically you will proc 5 times on average with 1 WMS if you hit the 5 mobs.

5 procs means : 2*5*20% weapon damage (on hit Lightning Enchantment dmg, 2 sweeps per WMS) + 5*3*20% weapon damage (Lightning Arc dmg i.e. procs) = 500% weapon damage

So in a 5-mob pack your Perfect Lightning enchantment will add 500% weapon damage per WMS. 5*894 (average CN Sword damage) = 4472 dmg.

On the other hand, if you had the Perfect Vorpal enchantment, the calculation would depend on how much crit you have.
It would also depend on your WMS tooltip damage which takes in account your power.
Vorpal damage is affected by your Armor Penetration while Lightning damage isn't, so let's take it in account as well.

There are many variables here that will depend on your itemization, ability scores, feats and class features.
I'll assume you have T2 gear with roughly 40% crit (in fight) and 10% armor penetration.

So your additional Vorpal damage will be 40%*50%*1.1 = 22% average bonus damage per hit.

To give you a rough idea my current WMS damage tooltip is : 493-579 damage.
So if you have T2 gear optimized for crit you'll roughly add 118 damage per hit so 236 dmg per WMS per target.

So if we look again at our exemple, a 5-mob pack in a T2 dungeon :

Perfect Lightning Enchantment will add 4472 dmg per WMS
Perfect Vorpal Enchantment will add 236*5 = 1180 dmg.

Of course this is just an estimation based on my gear and assumptions, which you may find incorrect. I'm just trying to do estimations here.

If we go further, we can use our stats here to calculate how many mobs you have to hit for Lightning Enchantment to beat Vorpal Enchantment on Weapon Master Strikes (GWF).

1 target :
Vorpal deals 236 extra damage per WMS.
Lightning will deal 179 extra on a single target (20% weapon damage, can't chain since there is no other target to chain to).
--> Vorpal beats Lightning

2 targets :
Vorpal deals 472 extra damage per WMS.
Lightning will deal 2*2*20% + 2*1*20% (assuming Lightning Arc cannot bounce back) = 100% weapon damage = 894
--> Lightning beats Vorpal

Many GWF mechanics suggest this class may be the best for on-hit builds (i.e. procs) and Lightning Enchantment looks like a great asset in that regard.

moonba · June 2013

I did a bit of testing myself to add some graphs to my earlier statements.

I have the Ancient Castle Champion's Greatsword enchanted with Lightning Enchantment (rank 2 i.e. "Normal").

So here's what I got using WMS on 3 dummies for 1min :

As you can see the Lightning Arc damage is missing. That's because it is considered by the parser to be damage from a Dummy to a Dummy (which, in a way, is true) but not damage done by me.

So here's the separate log for that :

If we sum it up, my overall damage over 1min was 460 565 (I'm using dash-cancel for those who may wonder).

As you can see, the Lightning Weapon (primary component of Lightning Enchantment) accounts for 10.8% of that damage and the Lightning Arc (secondary component, i.e. "proc") accounts for 5.7%.

It's only logical that the Lightning Arc accounts for roughly half of the Lightning Weapon since my Lightning Enchantment has 50% chance to proc 1 chain. I expect this to change as I improve my enchantment.

Overall, Lightning Enchantment contributed as 16.5% of my damage during this encounter.

As a comparison, if I had the rank 2 Vorpal enchantment (i.e. "Normal"), and with my current gear which grants me 38.8% crit in fights, the Vorpal enchantment would account for 0.388*0.25 = 9.7% additional damage.

As a matter of fact, I would need 66% crit chance in combat for a Vorpal enchantment (25% crit severity) to beat the 16.5% damage of Lightning enchantment (and I'm not even taking into account the extra damage that would add to the first log).

moonba · June 2013

Bought the Greater Lightning Enchantment to do some testing, so here's what I got :

And the Dummy damage for Lightning Arc :

As you can see, the duration is the same as my previous test with the rank 2 Lightning enchantment : 1min. The number of WMS sweeps is exactly the same. Thus, we can draw comparisons.

Overall, the Greater Lightning enchantment is much, much stronger thank rank 2. If we add both graphs, we can see that the overall damage was 532097.

Lightning Weapon accounts for 12.9% of that damage and Lightning Arc for 10%.
Overall, Greater Lightning enchantment dealt 22.9% of my damage during this encounter.

Now I'd like to mention a nasty BUG encountered with the Greater Lightning Enchantment : the chain proc sometimes only hits 1 nearby target instead of 2.
In terms of stats I think there's 25% chance that it will chain twice (intented behaviour) and 25% chance that it will chain only once.
I'd like to clarify that I tested this on dummies so there were always sufficient targets for the proc to happen, but half of the time the proc didn't work as intented.

More on this soon if I manage to get the Perfect Lightning Enchantment.

mungo112 · June 2013

Also it doenst proc from lots of skills and not for guarded attacks for GF and not reflected damage.

keobiaa · June 2013

I appreciate the work you've done and the tangible data provided moonba.

bongstick · June 2013

Off topic maybe.But i was told after Perfect we have Ancient enhancements. The person that told me knows a guy that has an Ancient Vorpal but he is perma banned. It was made during the fusion exploit. Anyone can confirm?

warpet · June 2013

greater vorpal is broken in so much ways atm ;/ it dose not glow,it dose not increase gs,it dose not improve critic damage in char screen and it also bug total dungeon damage calculator so it wont ad critics in total damage anymore look like i have almost 50% less total damage in dungeons after i equiped vorpal and improved my critic chance and damage

moonba · June 2013

It doesn't proc from DoTs or any damage that is considered as a DoT behavior : i.e. reflected damage, Tenebrous Enchantment, etc.

But it does proc from Steel Blitz class feature of the GWF :

[Combat (Self)] Your Weapon Master's Strike deals 596 (411) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 177 (153) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Steel Blitz deals 1226 (1066) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 179 (155) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 175 (152) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[COLOR="#B22222"][Combat (Self)] Your Steel Blitz deals 1309 (1138) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 186 (162) Lightning to Target Dummy.[/COLOR]

For those who may wonder, Steel Blitz feature is : "Become adept at fighting multiple targets, gaining a chance to deal an extra attack which increases based on how many enemies you hit."

The interesting part of that feature is that it uses weapon damage as a base (+24% if you have the rank 3 of that power) no matter which attack you proc it from, and it can proc off both strikes of a WMS sweep.

It's definitely the best feature for an AoE, proc-based, GWF build.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm fairly confident that many possible builds for other class could trigger the potential of this enchant.

fauust01 · June 2013

Does chined dmg trigger Tene Enchants ?

moonba · June 2013

Yes it does, as well as any other DoT. I think Tenebrous can proc off pretty much anything.

damianess · June 2013

bongstick wrote: »

Off topic maybe.But i was told after Perfect we have Ancient enhancements. The person that told me knows a guy that has an Ancient Vorpal but he is perma banned. It was made during the fusion exploit. Anyone can confirm?

I heard about this rumor as well but I think or I hope it's just that. Perfect Vorpal is +50% critical severity and Perfect Soulforged is 5 sec immunity under 25% health so anything beyond that is ridiculously OP.

fauust01 · June 2013

moonba wrote: »

Yes it does, as well as any other DoT. I think Tenebrous can proc off pretty much anything.

It does not proc via BileThorn DOT thats why asking ( i mean this poision weapon enchant )

fauust01 · June 2013

is it 100% confirmed that Tenebrous Enchantment trigger VIA chained dmg from Lightning Enchantment (weapon enchant ofc)?

sominator · June 2013

Hey all, we're looking into this issue. Thanks for letting us know!

osadamask · June 2013

sominator wrote: »

Hey all, we're looking into this issue. Thanks for letting us know!

You are nerfing Tenes as well right?

moonba · June 2013

I hope sominator meant they'll look into the several bugs I mentioned earlier about Lightning Enchantment... not nerfing Tenebrous xD

By the way fauust01 I can provide you simple logs about Tenebrous enchantment procs. Hope it'll help you :

[Combat (Self)] Critical Hit! Your Sure Strike deals 1422 (1354) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 166 (158) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

[COLOR="#800080"][Combat (Self)] Your Tenebrous Power deals 273 Necrotic to Target Dummy.[/COLOR]

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

So Tenebrous can proc off DoTs.

[Combat (Self)] Your Sure Strike deals 825 (786) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Weapon deals 148 (141) Lightning to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 162 Lightning to Target Dummy.

[COLOR="#800080"][Combat (Self)] Your Tenebrous Power deals 273 Necrotic to Target Dummy.[/COLOR]

[Combat (Self)] Your Lightning Arc deals 162 Lightning to Target Dummy.

[COLOR="#800080"][Combat (Self)] Your Tenebrous Power deals 273 Necrotic to Target Dummy.[/COLOR]

[Combat (Self)] Your Steel Blitz deals 1053 (1003) Physical to Target Dummy.

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

[COLOR="#800080"][Combat (Self)] Your Tenebrous Power deals 273 Necrotic to Target Dummy.[/COLOR]

[Combat (Self)] Your Deep Gash deals 91 Physical to Target Dummy.

As you can see it proc'd off Lightning Arc twice, and I'm confident it can proc off Steel Blitz as well, since Lightning Arc can proc off that.

I think Tenebrous cannot proc off Lightning Weapon tho, since this damage is considered to be (and displayed as) part of your attack. That would explain why Bilethorn doesn't proc it.

EDIT : I am unsure wether Tenebrous actually proc'd on the target Lightning Arc chained to, or on the target of the attack. From what I can see, Tenebrous only shows damage on the main target. We would need different dummy names to make sure...

moonba · June 2013

Allow me to make a short recap of the problems encountered and suggestions for improvements regarding Lightning Enchantment (for any dev/community manager passing by).

Lightning Enchantment : You deal an additional X% of weapon damage as Lighting damage with every strike (Lightning Weapon in the log). This damage chains Y times at a 50% chance for each chain (Lightning Arc in the log).

Bugs / Unintended behavior :

Starting from rank 3 (Greater), Lightning Arc sometimes chains on less targets than it should. It is confirmed both in the log and visually.
Unlike some enchantments (e.g. Plague Fire), Lightning Weapon damage is not shown separately in the floating damage in-game. It is, however, treated separately in the log. That UI discrepancy is very confusing to the player because Lightning Arc does show separately, so it feels like something is wrong with Lightning Weapon.
Lightning Arc will sometimes chain as far as 30ft and agro a new pack of mobs. This happens even more as Lightning Enchantment rank goes higher. This can be fixed either by matching Lightning Arc range with agro range or by defining more complex rules for chain targets.

Suggestions / Possible improvements :

Improve the Log as a whole : sometimes procs are shown BEFORE the actual attack they proc'd from.
Scrolling in the Log tab seems to take into account new messages in other channels (even tho they are not displayed in Log), making scrolling very difficult at rush hours.
Since the PvP hall (dummy area) is the only place for Optimizing/Theorycrafting, please make it a little larger and add more Dummy groups (like 4-dummy, 5-dummy packs, etc). This would greatly help some AoE classes get a better understanding of game mechanics.
Better log for us means better feedback for you. Help us help you.

Thank you !

moonba · June 2013

So I finally managed to test the Perfect Lightning Enchantment, and here's the associated log :

As you can see, the Perfect Lightning Enchantment accounted for 24% of the overall damage. A very similar figure to the Greater Lightning Enchantment. Disappointing right ? But why is that ?

Two reasons :

I managed to get more sweeps in during the 1min run, so the proportion of Lightning damage is lessened by the sheer amount of WMS damage. If we look at raw damage the Greater Lightning Enchantment dealt 121 998 total while the Perfect Lightning Enchantment dealt 157 510. The number of sweeps isn't the same so we can't really compare here, but looking at the Lightning Arc damage only we can see that it gained almost +50% so there is improvement here.
Perfect Lightning Enchantment "glitches" even more as the previous ranks.

In terms of behavior, Perfect Lightning Enchantment will proc 1 to 3 chains (seems completely random)
The first two chains seem to work exactly like the Greater version, but the third chain will always strike back the target you originally hit.

Perfect Lightning Enchantment is the most "glitched" enchantment in the game (or should I say "poorly described" ?).

It says : "[...].This damage chains 3 times at 50% chance for each chain."

What actually happens is that there are 3 "rolls" for each of the "chains", and each roll has 50% chance to succeed.

Let me explain myself here :

You strike with a simple attack --> the system will start 3 rolls

Roll 1 --> you roll 75 so you're above 50 --> succeed
Roll 2 --> you roll 63 so you're above 50 --> succeed
Roll 3 --> you roll 45 so you're under 50 --> fail

(I took random values here, just to illustrate)

2 rolls succeeded and 1 failed, so you'll only proc 2 chains out of the 3 possible. Yeah I know... that's really not what the tooltip says. Actually it does say that but with a very poor choice of words.

So what are the maths here ? How much damage do Lightning Enchantment deal per rank on average (assuming enough targets are around) ?

Rank 1 (Lesser) : +10% Weapon Damage
Rank 2 (Normal) : +12% WD + 50%*12% WD = 18% WD
Rank 3 (Greater) : +18% WD + (50%*18% WD + 25%*18% WD) = 31,5% WD
Rank 4 (Perfect) : +20% WD + (37.5%*20% WD + 37,5%*2*20% WD + 12.5%*3*20% WD) = 50% WD

We get the same results as earlier (cf. page 1), it's just the repartition that differs.

E.g. for the Perfect rank : you don't have 50% chance to proc nothing and 50% chance to proc 3 chains (black or white) but actually 12.5% chance to proc nothing, 37.5% chance to proc 1 chain, 37.5% chance to proc 2 chains and 12.5% chance to proc 3 chains.

So if I'm guessing right this is the intended behavior of Lightning Enchantment, but the in-game description is just very poor and doesn't really reflect that (or maybe I'm the only one that got mislead here).

In any case, I hope this explains how the enchantment works and what its limits are.

aierrs · July 2013

I think this thread totally deserve a bump. Devs, someone is doing your job for you :P.

Please, buff the enchantments properly.

There is so many kind of enchantments but only a 1-2 matters. Lightning have huge potential. Don't waste it.

P.S.

Moonba, can you provide me your opinion on this:

I am crit built, I have 36% crit under Offensive and healing in Character window. (not sure if that number alrdy includes Weapon Mastery which I have) Also I slot Weapon master which adds 4.5% crit.

So total of 40.5% innate crit.

My path is destroyer running roar/ ibs/ flourish/ wms/ ss/ slam.

I have soft cap all my stats.

24% Arpen.
3k Recovery
2.2k Def

Reading through what you have mentioned, it seems like lightning is the way to go, but will love it if you can affirm.

Thanks.

sprezt · July 2013

Thank you for your hard work moonba! Just one thing about your math for the Perfect version, everything else seems to check out, but I think there is a small error:

moonba wrote: »

Rank 4 (Perfect) : +20% WD + (37.5%*20% WD + 37,5%*2*20% WD + 12.5%*3*20% WD) = 50% WD[/COLOR]

[...]

E.g. for the Perfect rank : you don't have 50% chance to proc nothing and 50% chance to proc 3 chains (black or white) but actually 12.5% chance to proc nothing, 37.5% chance to proc 1 chain, 37.5% chance to proc 2 chains and 12.5% chance to proc 3 chains.

You're adding the percent chance for all possibilities together into the damage of one lightning proc "event". I think you can average them, but not lump them together. You should have just done it like you did it with the other ranks :P

Rank 4 (Perfect): +20% WD + (50%*20%WD) + (25%*20%WD) + (12.5%*20%WD) -> 20% WD (1+.5+.25+.125)= 37.5% WD per proc

So the fall off compared to the Normal -> Greater jump is quite steep. I don't know why they made it fall off so hard when (the old enemy) Vorpal retains static growth throughout the ranks. I feel like this is a disparity that needs to be closed. Not that Perfect Lightning won't be strong, it just... is 6.5% worth 64 Coalescents to you :P

rhymfaxe · July 2013

The old D&D Chain Lightning functions similarly to what you are seeing. It dealt 50% less damage for each additional target (up to max targets), so:

1 target: 1/2 dmg +
2 target: 1/4 dmg +
3 target: 1/8 dmg

Which is how I think it's intended to work, the person who wrote the tooltip was just...bad at his job.

Lightning Enchantment (Weapon Enchantment) bugs and feedback

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