Why scourge is *worse* on many DoT powers

Hi all, this has been bugging me for a while so I'll cut to the chase.

Disclaimer: I'm not talking about Rain of Fire, or any pseudo-pet DoT powers like that. I did a bit of searching before posting this too, so I'm relatively certain this hasn't been discussed much, if at all.

I've lurked the forums for quite some time and played corruptors enough to know that most people seem to think that DoT powers are better for optimizing scourge. Since the game should supposedly re-calculate the scourge chance on each tick of damage, each subsequent tick should have a greater chance of scourging.

Based on my observations, this is not the case. In fact, I intend to show you that DoT powers are usually worse that their burst damage counterparts. I am speaking mainly from repeated experimentation with Gloom from Dark Blast, and Fire Breath from Fire Blast. Here's the main thing I've noticed:

[u]If the first tick of a DoT attack does not scourge, none of the remaining ticks will scourge (!)[u]

I have noticed this trend on countless occasions- I have never seen a tick of a DoT power scourge if the very first tick did not scourge.

Furthermore! My reasoning as to why DoT powers are worse (that is to say that you scourge less often overall if you have DoT powers):

If you cast a DoT power (Gloom, for example), and then follow up with a burst damage power (say Dark Blast), the scourge chance for Dark Blast will be calculated using whatever %hp your target has when Dark Blast hits (before Gloom has had a chance to finish its 8 ticks). Consequently you will have less of a chance to scourge on Dark Blast than if Gloom had dealt its damage in a single burst.

Let's use an example with some values from Mid's: Dark Blast does 41.7dmg, Gloom does 73.4dmg

Say an enemy has 200hp, and I already have them down to 50% (100hp). Now I hit them with Gloom, and follow up with dark blast queued up. Before dark blast hits, four ticks of gloom go off, so the enemy's at 63.3hp. This means they are 18.35% below half-hp, and I have a (18.35%*2.5) = 45.875% chance to scourge on Dark Blast. Had Gloom been a burst damage power, the enemy would have had 100-73.4 = 26.6hp, which is 36.7% below half-hp, giving me a (36.7*2.5) = 91.75 chance to scourge on Dark Blast.

One last thing to note is that this is not the case with pseudo-pet powers, like Rain of Fire (as I've noticed with my fire/dark corr). Apparently those pseudo-pet powers do re-check for scourge on each tick, making them pretty awesome.

So, there you have it, and it really grinds my gears, to be honest. I was so excited about DoT ownage when I made my dark/cold corr, but here I am sad and dejected at the results.

Your commentary is welcome-- I would love one of you number crunchers to prove me wrong, but my results speak for themselves. Hopefully this thread causes enough of a stir to get things fixed

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The DoT from Gloom and Breath of Fire only have one accuracy check so if the first tic Scourge, the rest will too.

I do agree that DoT may not benefit as much. The case with Dark Blast set is that it has two cone attacks and if you cycle them like TT, NF, Gloom and Dark Blast, the following attacks have a high chance scourging. It could also be that Dark Blast does less dmg so I need to throw in more attacks to see scourge.


I think somebody needs to compare how many times Dark Blast set scourge VS Ice/Energy scourge. It is hard to compare to Fire / Sonic since their secondary effect yields more damage.

I am interested to know if Dark Blast indeed scourge less.

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What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.

Yeah, Scourge calculates based on health at the to-hit check, not even when the damage hits. This can lead to some really stupid situations when you have a slow moving, high-damage attack (see: Blackwand) that takes the mob to under 20% health from above 50% but because you attacked before the damage from the previous attack was applied, the fact that your next attack didn't deal damage until they were under the 20% mark doesn't matter - it won't get the Scourge.

I had this happen several times running around on a lowbie Corruptor street sweeping lieutenants in Mercy - a Dark Blast doing 11 points of damage should Scourge to kill a 100hp lieutenant... and it wasn't.

(edit: for what it's worth, pseudopet powers have the exact same issue, but the rain powers have a tohit check every 0.2 seconds and that masks it)

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I have an AR corruptor and this is not the case with Ignite. I think it's because Ignite is considered a summon and each tick has it's own check?

Considering that I'm not sure about my other DoTs but I think have seen scourges on ticks if the first one did not scourge. Then again I could just be saying that because I HAVE seen Ignite do that.

I'll have to keep an eye out.

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[ QUOTE ]
I have an AR corruptor and this is not the case with Ignite. I think it's because Ignite is considered a summon and each tick has it's own check?

Considering that I'm not sure about my other DoTs but I think have seen scourges on ticks if the first one did not scourge. Then again I could just be saying that because I HAVE seen Ignite do that.

I'll have to keep an eye out.

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Ignite works similarly to the rain powers; I simply forgot about it (as I do most of AR) when lumping things as "rain powers".

Since it makes a new tohit check 5 times a second, you'll see Scourges on the way down. It's still reliant on the health at the time it makes the check, it just checks to see if it hits for each tick of damage instead of once for the whole power.

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Peter, you are right that Dark Blast does less damage with Scourge, but NOT for your reasons listed.

Scourge is supposed to be all or nothing. It is working as intended for if the first tick fails, all of the ticks fail.


However! There is an issue with Gloom, Tenebrous Tentacles, Nightfall, Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Flamethrower, Full Auto and a few others that function in the same way. I have already PM'd Castle regarding this, and he is looking into the issue.


In essence, the bug that is causing Dark Blast to do less damage with Scourge is that if the first tick Succeeds, the subsequent ticks CAN fail. This is not intended, and this is new since I13 (When CoV first released, it worked without problems, but something has crept in since then).

With that said, it may now be possible (once the bug is fixed), for the above DoT powers to re-check Scourge on every tick so that if the first tick fails, the remaining follow up ticks may trigger. But, I wouldn't hold my breath, they may make it go back to the status quo of all or nothing. (As currently it's most or nothing)


PS: In your example that you provide.

[ QUOTE ]

Say an enemy has 200hp, and I already have them down to 50% (100hp). Now I hit them with Gloom, and follow up with dark blast queued up. Before dark blast hits, four ticks of gloom go off, so the enemy's at 63.3hp. This means they are 18.35% below half-hp, and I have a (18.35%*2.5) = 45.875% chance to scourge on Dark Blast. Had Gloom been a burst damage power, the enemy would have had 100-73.4 = 26.6hp, which is 36.7% below half-hp, giving me a (36.7*2.5) = 91.75 chance to scourge on Dark Blast.

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Whether the Dark Blast that follows up Scourges or not, as the foe only has 26.6 HP remaining, Dark Blasts base damage of 41 is going to kill him. So, Scourge makes no difference in assisting with this particular kill. In fact, the majority of "Scourge" kills in a Corruptor's life are indeed "overkill".

For the most part, only Bosses and higher will scourge actually make a difference in the kill rate of the foes.

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I'm curious... how are you determining that Scourge is stopping in the middle of a DoT?

I've never seen that behavior.

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Natsuki, thanks for the reply! Regarding your points:

I have indeed observed that issue with many of the DoT powers you listed. I was going to discuss that in my original post, but second guessed my perception of that phenomenon. I've noticed that often when Gloom scourges, it *seems* like some of the scourges on subsequent ticks are not guaranteed. However, I figured it was possible that the scourge damage was still triggering, just the orange text wasn't showing up (you know when there are a LOT of damage numbers all over the screen some of them don't display? it often happens during rain powers-- so many ticks of -1 that you can't even see your other attacks doing damage).

When I wrote the original post, I tested scourging Gloom on a few random enemies while watching the combat tab. It seemed like Gloom was scourging on every tick after the first scourge, even if the orange text wasn't always saying SCOURGE. However, my tests were by no means extensive, so you could still be right.

All that said, I still believe my original point is valid: If you hit an enemy with a burst damage power while a DoT is still ticking, you'll have less of a chance of scourging than if you had waited for the DoT to finish (or if the DoT had been burst damage instead).

I agree that (sadly) most scourge kills are overkill. But just because it would have been overkill in the example I provided doesn't mean it's never a factor. Since my dark/cold is only level 20 (and only has those two single target attacks), I've had plenty of time to experiment. There have been countless occasions where I've had to choose which power to cast first on a <50%hp enemy. Casting Dark Blast first always gives me a better chance to scourge on Gloom than visa versa.

I truly hope they can and do make scourge re-check on each tick-- it would be a nice little (well-deserved) bonus to our damage output, and hopefully make up for all the damage we waste on overkill scourging.

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I wouldn't stress about overkill with Scourge. As Starsman pointed out in his excellent analysis of Scourge, *everybody* overkills by some amount on the killing blow. It's just more common with Scourge. Despite that, Scourge still provides a significant benefit to Corruptors easily on par with other inherents like Scrapper criticals. Better in some cases. Worse in others. But nothing to sneeze at.

You're right about some misconceptions concerning DoTs. I remember seeing someone say how well Full Auto "leveraged" Scourge and I could only assume that person was confused about how things work. They don't play particularly well with Scourge unless they are pet-summon DoTs. Just the way things work. I doubt even the benefit that pet-summon DoTs get was intentional so much as a result of how things already worked before Corruptors were even invented. I wouldn't hold my breath for this to change any time soon.

If it's any consolation, Gloom gets slightly better total damage to offset the fact that it deals that damage more slowly than a burst power.

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I've lurked the forums for quite some time and played corruptors enough to know that most people seem to think that DoT powers are better for optimizing scourge.

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I don't know where you got that impression from. I've seen a number of discussions on the subject and the behavior of Scourge with DoTs has been well established and well known from what I've seen. I'm kind of surprised this is news to you if you've been following this forum.

No offense intended. I do tend to take lengthy breaks from checking certain sections of these boards so it's entirely possible I missed some discussions. It's kind of hard to imagine a discussion with misinformation going uncorrected though.

Anyway yeah Scourge doesn't play well with DoTs for the most part. ;shrug. Whatcha gonna do?

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I'm curious... how are you determining that Scourge is stopping in the middle of a DoT?

I've never seen that behavior.

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It was rather easy to notice it when I was testing out my new build for my Dark/Kin Corruptor.

Spam only Tenebrous Tentacles on a foe until they are dead, and wait between attacks for the DoT to wear off. Because of how SLOW the ticks are you can easily see when the Scourge fails. If you can't, well, let's just say you would have to be blind to miss it.

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Are you using the combat text or numbers over the mobs head?

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Dirges

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Are you using the combat text or numbers over the mobs head?

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I'm guessing numbers instead of combat text - which are rather unreliable.

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Continuing the tangent...

I half-remember something where Scourge might get applied as a "lump sum" for some powers. So if Gloom hits for 10,10,10...10 (totalling 80) you might get 10, SCOURGE ! 80, 10, 10... 10 (totalling 80 + 80 scourge).

I might be misremembering, because that's how [all] Scrapper crits work, but I thought I saw this on my Dark Blast/Traps a few months back.

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[ QUOTE ]
Continuing the tangent...

I half-remember something where Scourge might get applied as a "lump sum" for some powers. So if Gloom hits for 10,10,10...10 (totalling 80) you might get 10, SCOURGE ! 80, 10, 10... 10 (totalling 80 + 80 scourge).

I might be misremembering, because that's how [all] Scrapper crits work, but I thought I saw this on my Dark Blast/Traps a few months back.

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Going through all of the primaries for Corruptors on City of Data, every single power that has a DoT does Scourge as a DoT except for the Fire Blast powers that have the chance for DoT tacked on to the main damage of the power (the DoT ticks don't Scourge at all). In one case - Ball Lightning - the power has upfront damage and a DoT and the initial damage is divided out among the DoT for Scourge instead of duplicating how the damage is applied.

Now, the numbers popping up over a mob's head aren't exactly reliable; I've had whole attacks that didn't show up in those due to either network latency or simply firing too many attacks in a short time frame. The combat log won't lie about it, though, and I have yet to see a DoT stop Scourging in the middle there.

The only way it stops is on the pseudopet powers (Ignite, Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Blizzard) and that's because those aren't really DoTs - the pet simply fires off a new attack five times per second.

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Now, the numbers popping up over a mob's head aren't exactly reliable; I've had whole attacks that didn't show up in those due to either network latency or simply firing too many attacks in a short time frame. The combat log won't lie about it, though, and I have yet to see a DoT stop Scourging in the middle there.

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Except, there is ZERO Network Latency, and I'm NOT firing multiple attacks, I wait for the DoT to end so the damage isn't stacking over it.

Of course, one of the problems with the combat log is that it does not differentiate between Scourge and non-Scourge damage.

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No but if you enable the log so that it saves to a file you get timestamped ticks. You'll see two damage reports marked with the same timestamp. One being the normal damage and one being the Scourge. You also want to be sure you're NOT spamming the power and overlapping effects or it will be difficult to tell them apart.

If you have a log showing the Scourge stopping halfway through on a single application of Tenebrous Tentacles, for example, then I'd say PM that to Castle straight away.

edit: On second thought, if there IS a bug here, it's more likely to be related to firing off additonal attacks while a scourging DoT is in progress. I wonder what happens if you fire a DoT that begins scourging then fire another attack that fails to Scourge. Will the DoT stop scourging midway too?

Just a guess.

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Touche, I forgot I could I check that.

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Alright everyone, I have your proof that you wanted. Got two strange uses out of Tenebrous Tentacles. Please note that I WAIT until the original TT wore before recasting it.

I am separating out three different cases.


Here is the first case. This is a NORMAL zero scourge TT use.

05-28-2009 09:26:02 You activated the Tenebrous Tentacles power.
05-28-2009 09:26:02 HIT Steel Strongman! Your Tenebrous Tentacles power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 31.64.
05-28-2009 09:26:02 Steel Strongman MISSES! Mask of Weakness power had a 32.02% chance to hit, but rolled a 89.24.
05-28-2009 09:26:03 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 11.12 points of negative energy damage and reduces their chance to hit!
05-28-2009 09:26:04 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:05 You activated the Transfusion power.
05-28-2009 09:26:05 HIT Steel Strongman! Your Transfusion power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 77.25.
05-28-2009 09:26:05 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:06 Your Transfusion drains some endurance from Steel Strongman!
05-28-2009 09:26:06 Transfusion HITS you! Transfusion power was autohit.
05-28-2009 09:26:06 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:07 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:08 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:09 You activated the Siphon Speed power.
05-28-2009 09:26:09 Your Siphon Speed has slowed the attack and movement speed of Steel Strongman while increasing your own!
05-28-2009 09:26:09 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:10 Tenebrous Tentacles is recharged.
05-28-2009 09:26:10 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:11 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:13 Transfusion is recharged.


Here in the second case, the very first tick of damage FAILS to scourge, and the remaining ticks of damage SCOURGE. This is the first time I have noticed this to be honest.


05-28-2009 09:26:14 You activated the Tenebrous Tentacles power.
05-28-2009 09:26:14 HIT Steel Strongman! Your Tenebrous Tentacles power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 41.09.
05-28-2009 09:26:15 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 11.12 points of negative energy damage and reduces their chance to hit!
05-28-2009 09:26:16 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:16 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:17 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:17 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:18 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:18 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:19 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:19 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:20 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:20 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:21 Tenebrous Tentacles is recharged.
05-28-2009 09:26:21 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:21 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:22 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:22 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:23 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:23 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 2.46 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:24 Steel Strongman MISSES! Hurl power had a 32.02% chance to hit, but rolled a 82.58.


Here in the first case, the FIRST tick of damage scourges, but the remaining all fail to scourge.


05-28-2009 09:26:25 You activated the Tenebrous Tentacles power.
05-28-2009 09:26:25 HIT Steel Strongman! Your Tenebrous Tentacles power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 14.42.
05-28-2009 09:26:27 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 11.12 points of negative energy damage and reduces their chance to hit!
05-28-2009 09:26:27 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 11.12 points of negative energy damage and reduces their chance to hit!
05-28-2009 09:26:28 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:28 The Strongman's Mask of Weakness has drained your strength. Your Damage and Accuracy have been severely reduced.
05-28-2009 09:26:29 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:30 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:31 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:32 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:33 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!
05-28-2009 09:26:33 Tenebrous Tentacles is recharged.
05-28-2009 09:26:34 Your Tenebrous Tentacles entangles Steel Strongman for 6.59 points of smashing damage!




So, can I say I told you so that scourge isn't working right now?


EDIT: By the way, I can't show what I experienced with Gloom in here, because it ticks TWICE as fast as TT does, which means there's two normal ticks of damage per second, or approximately of that.

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Ok, snagged a boss to test out Gloom on, so there's a bit more power use (aka Siphon Power, Siphon Speed, Transfusion, and Transference) but I only used Gloom to kill with and it looks like with Gloom it's functioning correctly so far. 16 ticks when scourging, and 8 ticks when non-scourge.


With that said though, there is definitely something wrong with TT as can be seen above. I might have to test Gloom a bit more to make sure I didn't just get lucky >_> But, I admit I may have been wrong on Gloom, but I knew I wasn't on TT.

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Did you truncate the last Tenebrous Tentacles log? It's showing only 7 ticks where the others have 8.

At any rate, that one is pretty easy to explain. Take a look at its CoD listing:

[ QUOTE ]
* 8 * 4.17 Smashing damage over 7.10 seconds (after 1 second delay) PvE only
* 5.63 Negative damage PvE only
* 8 * 4.17 Smashing damage over 7.10 seconds (after 1 second delay) PvE only, If Scourge
* 5.63 Negative damage PvE only, If Scourge

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The problem is that there are two Scourge checks - one for the neg energy damage and one for the smashing. I don't think there's any way to link the two to use the same roll. If they wanted to make it all or nothing, they'd have to roll all the damage into one line (all upfront or all dot, not a split between the two). It's why other dual type attacks, like Energy Blast, only have one Scourge tick that's deals the combined damage of both types (Smash + Energy).

All other powers (even dots like Gloom) only have one Scourge check. The only other power I found with the same quirk was Short Circuit vs Electronic targets. Everything else looks fine.

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And unfortunately, I don't think they can do that if they want TT to do mixed damage the way it does.

I really wish it was all negative damage, to be honest.

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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

If I did, it would have only been by mistake..

And hmm, I never noticed that with City of Data before. Learn something new every day I suppose, just knew that TT behaved strangely, heh.

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