Triggered Skills

[CowPimp]

Greetings all!

New to the game, but not new to the ARPG genre. I have a pretty good understanding of the mechanics, and most of them are clear from the game guide/community guide, but there are some questions I have that are difficult to test without repeated respecs. They surround triggered skills that you can proc via the skill trees. I’m using the skill Forge Strike, and started to spec into Detonating Ground, but don’t fully understand how other passives on the tree interact with those triggered effects:

• Do the additive and multiplicative modifiers from the rest of the Forge Strike skill tree affect Detonating Ground? For example, Goliath Strike (more hit damage vs rares/bosses), Strike Smash (increased AoE), and Patient Strike (now has a 3sec cooldown but does 30% more damage)? It’s not clear if Detonating Strike is considered an entirely separate skill, or if it is considered “part” of the Forge Strike skill.
• Somewhat similar to the other question: do on hit effects, like that from the Rending Descent node (armor shred on hit), get applied by Detonating Ground as well, or only Forge Strike? What about the hits from Detonating Strike counting toward Forged Weapons (the 20% chance on hit)?

As well, on the passive tree, does the Fresh from the Forge node (every 3 seconds you get a big boost to flat damage on your next attack) consider them as separate attacks, or does the added flat damage apply to both? I tried to do some testing here, and I think it applies to both parts of the attack, but I’m not certain. It’s a little tough to tell with the variance in damage rolls. Detonating Ground doesn’t seem to be able to trigger the effect at all on its own, but there are multiple possible explanations for that. I tested this by using another attack to waste the proc, then Forge Strike right before the buff comes up again, and Detonating Ground didn’t “eat” the proc when it was available. So, is Detonating Ground maybe not considered an attack at all? Maybe it’s just that it’s part of the Forge Strike attack?

One thing I was able to confirm with testing is that critical strikes are rolled separately for the Forge Strike and Detonating Ground.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[Heavy]

First off, welcoem to the LE community!

@CowPimp

Do the additive and multiplicative modifiers from the rest of the Forge Strike skill tree affect Detonating Ground? For example, Goliath Strike (more hit damage vs rares/bosses), Strike Smash (increased AoE), and Patient Strike (now has a 3sec cooldown but does 30% more damage)? It’s not clear if Detonating Strike is considered an entirely separate skill, or if it is considered “part” of the Forge Strike skill.

Generally the answer is:
Everything on the skill Tree, scales everything insides the skill tree, unless stated otherwise or s given node only scale specific things (like hit damage, ailment damge etc.).

IF a given node does not scale with things inside the skill spec tree it is specfically stated.
Here we have an example fo “Bone Splinters”, from Acolytes:
https://imgur.com/dBbngx5
As you can see in the advanced tooltip (if you press and hold [Alt])

In your example all the damage nodes in Forged Strike to scale “hit” damage, which will also affect Detonating Ground’s hit damage, but not the Igntie caused by it.

@CowPimp

Somewhat similar to the other question: do on hit effects, like that from the Rending Descent node (armor shred on hit), get applied by Detonating Ground as well, or only Forge Strike? What about the hits from Detonating Strike counting toward Forged Weapons (the 20% chance on hit)?

It’s very hard to test this, but the armour shred should apply.
Regarding the Forged Weapon spawns, i was a bit unsure and just tested it.

The Detonating Ground seems to not be able to spawn forged weapons, but this might be intentionaly, but it is defintiely not excluded in any tooltip.
This also might be due, Detonating Ground is actually it’s own seperate skill, but it just adopts all the damage modifers from passives and skill spec tree nodes, but reversely the Forged Weapons can’t spawn from it, because it is actually not Forged Strike Hitting.

I would like to have another opinion on this from some1 with Sentinel experience.
May the @Llama8 be spawned into this thread!

@CowPimp

As well, on the passive tree, does the Fresh from the Forge node (every 3 seconds you get a big boost to flat damage on your next attack) consider them as separate attacks, or does the added flat damage apply to both?

Detonating Ground is it’s “own attack”, if you press alt while hovering over skill nodes, that grant extra abilities you can even see it’s tags and scaling (for some reason this does not work on the Detonating Ground Node itself, but this is 100% a bug).
But it work on the both the follow up nodes:
https://imgur.com/F5CFG1y

Fresh from the Forge does applies to both, the initial hit and the Detoanting Ground hit.

@CowPimp

Maybe it’s just that it’s part of the Forge Strike attack?

Yes it is pretty much.

[Llama8]

As Heavy said, any modifiers in the skill’s tree are inherited by secondary effects, which is what Detonate Ground is, unless there’s a reason not to such as a node saying it doesn’t affect the secondary effect or there being a tag incompatibility (node says “more spell damage”, effect is an ailment or melee, etc).

This was actually asked yesterday on discord and the devs said yes, its inherited.

[Heavy]

My reason for summoning you, was more because of the summoning Forged Weapons, because with all the other stuff i was sure.

But the Forged Weapons not summoning of Detonating Ground hit, which i tested like 10 min’s on the dummy, didn’t worked.
Is that intentional or worth a bug report?

[Llama8]

Sounds more like a bug since there’s nothing in the description for it that would imply taht Forged Weapons shouldn’t be summon-able with the Detonating Ground hit.

[CowPimp]

Thanks for the helpful replies!

With respect to the Forged Weapons… Maybe that effect is different because it is an inherent property of the Forge Strike skill as opposed to a modifier node? Just speculating, but I could see that being a consistent explanation.

That seems to make Detonating Ground pretty powerful. It is just under 30% more damage assuming that it has a standard 100% added damage effectiveness (as opposed to Forge Strike’s 350%, which makes the total functionally 450% with that node).

One little follow up question if you don’t mind: the Forge Strike skill has a physical tag but not fire, and Detonating Ground has a fire tag but not physical. Because attacls typically have really low base damage values, aren’t those tags somewhat meaningless aside from understanding what modifiers will apply (e.g. if a modifier references a “fire skill”)? I say meaningless because with literally any white weapon in the game equipped, DG will deal more physical than fire damage, assuming no other added fire modifiers.

Actually, one more question (sorry lol)… Are the damage values on weapons added to Forge Strike at the 350% value? Does the weapon base value get calculated separately from added damage on a weapon? As in, if a weapon says +20 melee fire damage as a prefix/suffix (I forget which), is that subject to the 350% effectiveness, and is that different from the implicit added damage? My assumption is that all of it is considered “added damage,” and is thus subjected to that effectiveness modifier.

Thanks again for all your help!

[Llama8]

@CowPimp

One little follow up question if you don’t mind: the Forge Strike skill has a physical tag but not fire, and Detonating Ground has a fire tag but not physical. Because attacls typically have really low base damage values, aren’t those tags somewhat meaningless aside from understanding what modifiers will apply (e.g. if a modifier references a “fire skill”)?

Yeah, kinda. Skills get the vast majority of their damage from weapons (either flat added melee damage or adaptive spell damage, though the spell damage is a bit different since it uses the tags to determine what elements to add as).

Actually, one more question (sorry lol)… Are the damage values on weapons added to Forge Strike at the 350% value?

Yes.

Does the weapon base value get calculated separately from added damage on a weapon?

The implicit damage on a weapon is functionally identical to any flat melee damage prefixes you add (element notwithstanding).

As in, if a weapon says +20 melee fire damage as a prefix/suffix (I forget which), is that subject to the 350% effectiveness, and is that different from the implicit added damage? My assumption is that all of it is considered “added damage,” and is thus subjected to that effectiveness modifier.

Yes, it’s all added damage, just different elements.

[CowPimp]

Beautiful, that’s what I suspected. I think that is also the most intuitive choice.

You folks have been super helpful; thanks again!

[Cujo]

@Heavy

My reason for summoning you

Whaaat, in what skill tree is that? Does it work like “summon skeleton”, and can you summon more than one?

It would be awesome never having to read the game guide again, just “summon @Llama8” and one would have instant acces to all game knowledge.

[Llama8]

@Cujo

can you summon more than one?

Nobody wants that.

[Cujo]

@Llama8

Nobody wants that.

Wrong, just look at the smile on her face…

https://imgur.com/8ZNT0Wd

[CowPimp]

A little follow up on this topic…

It seems pretty clear to me that the area of effect passives in the Forge Strike skill do not effect the Detonating Ground trigger, even if the other stuff does. If I am wrong, then Detonating Ground starts as the smallest explosion known to man.