Interesting Discovery: Absorb Soul

Derressh - Dreamweaver

The level 19 Mystic skill, Absorb Soul:
Deals Physical Damage equal to 125% of your Magic
Damage plus xxxx to players. Deals Physical Damage
equal to 200% of your Magic Damage plus xxxx to monsters.
Absorb Soul cannot cause a critical strike.

This skill behaves rather strangely. Several people (me included) have decided that it is most likely a wood attack with 0 initial damage, followed immediately by a single tick of physical "damage over time" damage. This helps to make sense of several oddities about the skill, as you will read below.

Some strange things about the skill include

- Deals no damage to element-immune mobs (such as KunKun) even though it is specified as physical damage

- It has been tested and confirmed that wood immune bosses resist the spell as well. Whether or not the skill counts as specifically wood element when determining immunities has yet to be seen.

- Deals full damage through damage absorb skills (such as Aegis Sphere, Winged Shell, Wings of Protection, etc)

- Deals damage against Psychic Will (again, even though it's specified as physical damage)

- Deals full damage through damage-reduction skills (such as Invoke, Bramble Hood, Wings of Grace, etc)

- Does not show up in the damage log

- Deals full damage through a Cleric's Plume Shell (again, physical damage) and takes no MP from the cleric

- When used on mobs, sometimes the mob will simply fade away (like when a veno tames them) instead of going through their usual death animation

- Damage is unaffected by the Mystic's attack levels

- Deals damage through the Invincible buff (Spark, Feral Concentration, Absolute Domain, etc) in duels, works normally in open-PK

- Suffers no damage reduction when attacking from Air -> Ground

- Does not activate a Psychic's Soul of Retaliation, Soul of Stunning, or Soul of Vengeance

- Ignores opponent's defense levels

- Has almost 0 aggro-pulling capability (Probably the only time you'll aggro a mob with Absorb Soul is if it hasn't been hit yet)

- Results in no lost durability on weapon

- Consumes no magic attack utility charms

- Certain mobs/bosses will resist the skill entirely (even if they have no element immunity)

- Many bosses, and certain elite mobs, will resist the Nature's Vengeance amp (not necessarily something strange about AS, but still nerfs the damage of the skill). I'm going to go ahead and assume, since the amp also has a slow effect, that any enemy that can't be slowed, can't be amped.

- Does not break sleep

These are just the oddities that I have personally tested. If anyone else knows of any other interesting things that occur with this skill, please post them and I will add them to the list. Thank you. b:cute

PS: These PvP-related "glitches" were discovered while dueling. And it has been brought to my attention that some of these skills/items may work differently under open-world PK. If anyone reading this thread has a Mystic in PK mode and could test some of these to confirm/deny that they work in dueling and PK, that would be great, thank you.

Sharazen - Archosaur

I can just see the pvp opportunities with this one!

ShiIen - Harshlands

Maybe thats why it doesn't stack with attack lvls.

Derressh - Dreamweaver

ShiIen - Harshlands wrote: »

Maybe thats why it doesn't stack with attack lvls.

Thanks for this post. I just tested it and confirmed that Absorb Soul is not affected by attack levels. Adding it to the list

Tsubakey - Heavens Tear

judging from what you said it seems to be a "pierce" skill that ignores and pierces many kinds of defenses. that kind of skill exist in a few other games i know, but usually the skill will tell u if it ignores certain defenses or not.

maybe thats why it got the nerf in pvp? have u tested it against a barb? does it do full dmg against a barbs HA armor defenses? or is the skill significantly weakened cuz he has so much P defense? if it does full dmg to HAs then it is more then like a skill that just ignores all defenses.

that kind of excites me cuz the pvp potential of that skill just went through the roof.

Derressh - Dreamweaver

Tsubakey - Heavens Tear wrote: »

judging from what you said it seems to be a "pierce" skill that ignores and pierces many kinds of defenses. that kind of skill exist in a few other games i know, but usually the skill will tell u if it ignores certain defenses or not.

maybe thats why it got the nerf in pvp? have u tested it against a barb? does it do full dmg against a barbs HA armor defenses? or is the skill significantly weakened cuz he has so much P defense? if it does full dmg to HAs then it is more then like a skill that just ignores all defenses.

that kind of excites me cuz the pvp potential of that skill just went through the roof.

Nope, I've tested it with high-pdef opponents, and it definitely takes reduction from normal boring old physical defense. Hit a 10x barb with it and did 53 damage, hit a 10x psy with it and did 200. It just seems to ignore any kind of buff that doesn't directly affect your defenses.

Druzt - Harshlands

Some intresting details on this skill. I am going to test all of this out.

SolRei - Harshlands

So this skill basically breaks through buffs. (Apart from your regular defense stuff like equipment and things like that) This skill appears very interesting. Though I pretty much thought this move was sex sense I first got it.

JugalateJudy - Dreamweaver

Derressh - Dreamweaver wrote: »

The level 19 Mystic skill, Absorb Soul:
Deals Physical Damage equal to 125% of your Magic
Damage plus xxxx to players. Deals Physical Damage
equal to 200% of your Magic Damage plus xxxx to monsters.
Absorb Soul cannot cause a critical strike.

This skill behaves rather strangely. It seems like the game does not currently consider it an attack in some situations. Whether this is intended, or a glitch that needs to be fixed has yet to be seen.

Some strange things about the skill include

- Deals no damage to elemntal-immune mobs (such as KunKun) even though it is specified as physical damage

- Deals full damage through damage absorb skills (such as Aegis Sphere, Winged Shell, Wings of Protection, etc)

- Deals damage against Psychic Will (again, even though it's specified as physical damage)

- Deals full damage through damage-reduction skills (such as Invoke, Bramble Hood, Wings of Grace, etc)

- Does not show up in the damage log

- Deals full damage through a Cleric's Plume Shell (again, physical damage) and taking no MP from the cleric

- When used on mobs, sometimes the mob will simply fade away (like when a veno tames them) instead of going through their usual death animation

- Damage is unaffected by the Mystic's attack levels

- Deals damage through the Invincible buff (Spark, Feral Concentration, Absolute Domain, etc)

- Suffers no damage reduction when attacking from Air -> Ground


These are just the oddities that I have personally tested. If anyone else knows of any other interesting things that occur with this skill, please post them and I will add them to the list. Thank you. b:cute

Does it work thru iron guard powder or other immune to damage apos? i dont have any mystic yet so cant test it, but since im a cleric this wold affect me alot, wont be able to protect at all in pvp against a mystic, unfair. hope there is a bug or somethingb:sadb:surrender

Evict - Heavens Tear

If it deals damage through Domain, it's probably a bug. ijs.

JugalateJudy - Dreamweaver

Does it hit thru iron guard powder or other immune to damage apos? i dont have a mystic so cant test it, but im a cleric so this will affect me alot in pvp , especially on tws, wont be able to protect at all against a mystic ;o . Hope its a bug and that they will fix it b:shocked

Renza - Raging Tide

It's what I don't get about the elemental immunity mobs, the skill doesn't effect them at all, yet when we see a magic resistance mob, it powers right through it, I do wonder if the fact that when we use it and the damage doesn't show up on our log is either supposed to be like that or not, Since if we have our pet out, It's impossible to steal agro from it as it doesn't seem to count for damage, would be really helpful when people are tanking things and we don't want to steal agro anyway.

magena

JugalateJudy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Does it work thru iron guard powder or other immune to damage apos? i dont have any mystic yet so cant test it, but since im a cleric this wold affect me alot, wont be able to protect at all in pvp against a mystic, unfair. hope there is a bug or somethingb:sadb:surrender

Yes... ignore the fact that it has a 5 second channel time and with such bright casting colors and very specific animation.. it is totally overpowered. I see many a channel mystic in the future! Just as there are channel psychics ALL OVER THE PLACE! At 50% channel reduction, it is still FAR too fast to put the mystic to sleep, seal, or stun them. OMG! Whatever shall we do?!?!?

Now that is out of my system, I love this skill. Not for any of the reasons said above. Solely on the fact it looks kind of like the Chinese version of a hadoken. Go away Chun Li. b:surrender

Renza - Raging Tide wrote: »

It's what I don't get about the elemental immunity mobs, the skill doesn't effect them at all, yet when we see a magic resistance mob, it powers right through it, I do wonder if the fact that when we use it and the damage doesn't show up on our log is either supposed to be like that or not, Since if we have our pet out, It's impossible to steal agro from it as it doesn't seem to count for damage, would be really helpful when people are tanking things and we don't want to steal agro anyway.

If it truly is a physical attack, of course it wouldn't be subject to being resisted, anymore than a plume shot would. It is curious that it goes through plume shell with no mp consumption/ no damage reduction...

Eliaera - Sanctuary

Wow I can't help but wonder if this is a bug or not..but i don't really wanna find out ya know xD

Adroit - Lost City

Was this all tested in duels? Immune for example doesn't work the same in a duel as it does outside sz. Outside sz, when you immune.. nothing can touch you, in a duel.. control skills that don't deal damage (like mage FoW/Sleep, or bm roar.. tele stun etc) will still work. Just curious if any of these other oddities might work different in duels than outside

magena

Just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if Absorb Soul has a 'hidden' effect of just absorbing a monster (non boss.. maybe non elite) and part of the reason why the damage is not shown. Right now, mine is only level 1, dealing around 3k damage, but sometimes, casting the skill right off the bat, a monster will simply vanish with one hit and has more than the 3k average damage (like.. 18k HP).

Sort of like an added bonus, like Barrage of Arrows.. When the effects show double the arrow amount, more damage really is being dealt by the skill. Yet, it is never mentioned in the skill's description.

Desdi - Sanctuary

Some of the things on the list I had noticed myself but..wow? even through spark/feral/bomain? Just wow.

Dalesr - Harshlands

JugalateJudy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Does it work thru iron guard powder or other immune to damage apos? i dont have any mystic yet so cant test it, but since im a cleric this wold affect me alot, wont be able to protect at all in pvp against a mystic, unfair. hope there is a bug or somethingb:sadb:surrender

well it's not like a couple mystics are gonna line up and attack whoever uses AD hehehe

Derressh - Dreamweaver

JugalateJudy - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Does it hit thru iron guard powder or other immune to damage apos? i dont have a mystic so cant test it, but im a cleric so this will affect me alot in pvp , especially on tws, wont be able to protect at all against a mystic ;o . Hope its a bug and that they will fix it b:shocked

I would imagine it would, since I'm pretty sure Iron Guard gives the "Invincible" buff, same as Feral or a Spark. But I must admit that I haven't personally tested it out yet, and if/when I do, I will post a 100% sure answer.

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

Was this all tested in duels? Immune for example doesn't work the same in a duel as it does outside sz. Outside sz, when you immune.. nothing can touch you, in a duel.. control skills that don't deal damage (like mage FoW/Sleep, or bm roar.. tele stun etc) will still work. Just curious if any of these other oddities might work different in duels than outside

Yes, I do have to say that all this was tested in duels. b:sad

My mystic is only level 36 at the moment, and since I have the option to stay blue, blue I shall stay for now. b:surrender

If anyone has a Mystic in PK mode with some friends of different classes, it would be awesome if you could test a few of these to see if they work the same in PK.

Asherkill - Raging Tide

woah this is one alien skill
messed up but its so messed up its cool

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear

Another fun fact; the cooldown is probably short enough for it to be cast instantly twice in a row with Zooming Thunder Powders.

Derressh - Dreamweaver

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Another fun fact; the cooldown is probably short enough for it to be cast instantly twice in a row with Zooming Thunder Powders.

Ouch. x_x

I wouldn't really consider it a strange occurrence with the skill so much as just a convenient cooldown time, but still...ouch.

Laranda - Heavens Tear

Reminds me of White Damage from JD. It's a special damage type that has it's own rules and is known to bypass countless things. My guess is Absorb Soul is not really "Physical" damage. It something else, and the dev's called it Physical damage so people would know pdef worked against it.

Regenbogen - Lost City

- doesn't show in log, no atk levels -> dot damage
- doesn't work on magic immun -> magic attack(probably wood element test it on mountainfinger in abadon pls)

so its a non damage wood(?) magic attack with a single tick physical(?) dot yay

sounds like pw gets screwed more and more...b:avoid

KittyTaco - Lost City

Just wondering, does it do full damage against those WB like bosses?
you know, with the reduced damage skull thingy
hh bosses, frost bosses, etc

Derressh - Dreamweaver

Regenbogen - Lost City wrote: »

- doesn't show in log, no atk levels -> dot damage
- doesn't work on magic immun -> magic attack(probably wood element test it on mountainfinger in abadon pls)

so its a non damage wood(?) magic attack with a single tick physical(?) dot yay

sounds like pw gets screwed more and more...b:avoid

No, it does normal damage against magic resistance mobs. And hits Arcane classes like a truck full of bricks, so it's definitely physical damage. Just doesn't work on Magic immune for some reason.

EDIT: Wait, nevermind. I think I get what you're saying now. Basically saying that it acts as wood(?) element when deciding whether damage is dealt, but then does the physical DoT tick. That's definitely a possibility. But like you said, probably difficult to test/confirm until we get a mystic into abadon with it.

KittyTaco - Lost City wrote: »

Just wondering, does it do full damage against those WB like bosses?
you know, with the reduced damage skull thingy
hh bosses, frost bosses, etc

Tested it out, unfortunately it still has reduced damage aganst [?] mobs. I was excited for a second. b:surrender

magena

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Another fun fact; the cooldown is probably short enough for it to be cast instantly twice in a row with Zooming Thunder Powders.

b:surrender I fold. I completely forgot about those pots.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

Also deals damage to Immune to damage mobs / NPCs

http://i.imgur.com/XcX9P.png

Yhumy - Dreamweaver

Does wood mastery buff this skill?

Also, I've noticed that sometimes it fires before the channeling is complete. I've seen it fire, canceled the skill and mob still fades away and dies.

Dralighte - Harshlands

Derressh - Dreamweaver wrote: »

If anyone has a Mystic in PK mode with some friends of different classes, it would be awesome if you could test a few of these to see if they work the same in PK.

Mine is atm lvl 8x
Just list me what you want to try and I'll do it with friends

Derressh - Dreamweaver

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Also deals damage to Immune to damage mobs / NPCs

http://i.imgur.com/XcX9P.png

o.o Sweet. Thanks. Adding it to the list~

EDIT: Just tested it against Mrs. Zoologist and the Invisible lake beast in the center of Arch. Both of them resisted it and took no damage. :x

Dralighte - Harshlands wrote: »

Mine is atm lvl 8x
Just list me what you want to try and I'll do it with friends

Oh cool. Let's see here. See if you can test it against the invincible buff for starters. Absolute Domain, Sparking, Feral Concentration, and see if anyone's willing to blow an IG powder (or a lesser version of it) for a test. Please and thank you. b:thanks