[2023] Last Epoch needs Consistency | Sub Skills are Broken

Hi everyone, Mike here from the aforementioned discord text. I'm really sorry about the mass confusion that I've caused, I messed up when I answered that person's question. I checked one of the conditionals and assumed the others worked the same. The Vengeance "while below" node does get passed along.

What I should have said was "stats which are conditional on the status of the target don't get passed along". I know how misleading what I said was because there are conditional effects that are based off of you which do get passed on.

These inconsistencies are definitely a problem, and we will be working to make these rules more obvious, explicitly stated, and consistent so that we can take the guesswork out of making a character.

So, I checked the list, and here is what does and doesn't work. Conditional effects which are based on the status of your target do not get passed to sub-skills. Conditional effects which are based on you do get passed along to sub-skills. This is done by applying stats to the skill as it is cast. As always this does not pass to equipable skills which might be triggered, e.g. Lightning Blast triggered by disintegrate.

These nodes all adhere to the conventions above.

• Chakram isn't a sub-skill, it's a replacement effect, so the conditional damage still applies.
• Swipe versus slowed doesn't go to Spirit Wolves.
• Lightning Blast versus shocked and chilled doesn’t go to Spark Nova.
• Fireball versus ignited doesn't pass to burst.
• Meteor versus full hp doesn't pass to shrapnel
• Shatter Strike Ice Spikes don’t get versus high health or versus frozen.
• Vengeance “while below” and ”while above” nodes do get passed along, while the “vs damaged” node doesn't.
• Warpath War Slash doesn’t get vs time-rot, or versus ignited.
• Rive’s Energy Wave doesn't get more versus ignited.
• Javelin Siege Barrage doesn’t get vs far away or vs high health
• Smite lightning bolts don't get either
• Forge Strike’s Detonating Ground doesn't get vs boss
• Judgment crit versus ignite only applies to the main hit.
• Judgment Eruption doesn't get any of versus high health, versus ignited, or crit versus ignited.
• Marrow Shards Bone Splinters node Crimson Ivory does work but that explicitly says that it does. The node Demise which grants vs bleeding does not get passed to Bone Splinters.
• Wandering Spirits Spectral Putrescence doesn’t get versus damned or versus cursed.
• Umbral Blades all conditionals are passed on as they are based off of you.
• Shadow Cascade all conditionals are passed on to Dagger Dance as they are based off of you.
• Hail of Arrows Barrage of Arrows doesn't get any of vs stunned, ignited, or per stack of bleed.

These are the current exceptions to this rule.

• Javelin split burst DOES get versus high health and far away
• Static Orb spell vs shocked DOES pass to Charged Ground

We will be looking into possible systematic changes that could improve consistency and predictability.

We very much appreciate the feedback and if anyone has found any other nodes which they aren't sure about regarding this, please feel free to add to the list and I'll check them.

Ideally they would all follow a rule. I don't have details on which will or won't be converted going forward yet.

black hole meteor is the exception, let's call it comet instead and it's like any other normal subskill now

sadly, it depends. Most of the time, probably not

I haven't checked every single node so there is bound to be an exception. However, since Spirit Wolves is not a subskill but rather a minion triggered ability, it does not inherit these things.

No. I got linked the thread here, I replied here. Please avoid hyperbole to try and prove a point.

Edit: I literally replied to a thread you posted in earlier today.

More damage to ignited enemies.

It is conditional on your target having the status of being ignited.

More damage to high health enemies.

It is conditional on your target having the status of high health.

It's just a byproduct of how skills are set up systematically. These target conditionals need to be individually coded for each skill and sub skill which wants to use them. This goes in a mutator for the skill. Some subskills don't even have a mutator because nothing changes their behavior. The two exceptions that I listed have had those properties manually passed down to the subskill mutator so that it works there too. We are looking into a systematic change that will allow us to do this automatically but it's something that will require a fairly significant change to accomplish.