Mark_GGG

The last confusing bit is that "increased damage taken by chill effectiveness". This only apply to damage by hits.

No it doesn't. It applies to cold damage, like it says - if it was restricted to damage from hits, it would say so, just like the other line specifies it's only for damage over time. Since cold damage over time is inherently cold damage, both those modifiers will apply to cold dot.

Frozen and chilled are separate. The chill applied by the hit uses the same chill effect calculation as any other chill, it doesn't have the freeze effect (which is itself not a 100% reduction but a booelan state setting action speed to zero). It will have whatever effect the chill has, like any other chill.

They cannot (mechanically). The separation is necessary because an enemy that's chilled because of being in a chilling area is not chilled by the skill, it's chilled by the area. There's an extra level of indirection there.

Only one chill can apply at a time, and it's same with the bonechill bonues associated with those chills. If the enemy is chilled by the skill and then enters a chilling area also created by the skill, then only one of those chills, and one of those bonechill bonuses, is applied.

Both parts of the one active bonechill bonus apply - increasing all cold damage taken by the current chill magnitude and increasing only over-time cold damage by a specific amount both apply, and cold dot is affected by both. But you can't stack the dot bonus from a direct chill and the dot bonus from a chilling area together - just like the chills that they're attached to, only one is active.

No. Nothing double-dips impale.

Damage taken modifiers inherently apply to damage taken, which is damage that has been mitigated. Impale uses the unmitigated damage, so those modifiers have not already applied to the damage of the impale.

Can Brands be supported by Spell Echo?

Yes

Would you both create two Brands with one cast

Yes

and would the activations from the Brands repeat?

No. Spell Echo makes casting the spell repeat. Repeating is a specific mechanic that means when you use a skill, you pay the cost only once, but play the animation (and thus cause the effects of the skill) twice. Casting a Brand spell is casting a spell, so can be repeated. A brand activating is nothing to do with casting anything - repeating can't apply to it.

This is correct.

So is Scorching Ray an exception then? Is it intentional that its burns stack with each other when e.g. you're running a multi-totem build or a summoner? Because it's known that Searing Bond doesn't stack. What's the difference between the two?

Yes, it's intentional that Scorching Ray deviates from the standard behaviour by having one debuff from each entity channelling the skill take effect, rather than just one overall. This should be explained better on the skill, and I've made a note about that to try to improve it in the future.

With the current description, the fact that it specifies a limit on the total fire res penalty is meant to imply to the user that mutliple beams can therefore apply simultanitously to one enemy, but I agree this should probably be made more explicit.

Can you find the mechanics details of ignite, chill/freeze, and shocked in the game?

These all have reminder text - any stat which causes them or has a chance to cause them will have reminder text attached (can be viewed by holding alt) explaining the basics of how they work.

The "main" 4 elemental ones can be caused on crit (on hit for chill) without any stats, so it's possible to be inflicting them without having an item that includes that explaination, but I believe those ones are specifically covered by the in-game help panel as well.

The new ailments are the same - if you can inflict Scorched, then the same stat that lets you do that also has the reminder text that explains what Scorched does.

We didn't change the tree specifically, we changed the reminder text on things that refer to "ailments" and then explain what things that means, because that has changed. How easy that thing is to get doesn't matter, it is an ailment, so the explaination of what things are ailments needs to include it so it's not lying to the player.

The reason I treat it that way is because that feels like the most reasonable way to implement it in the game's logic: instead of scanning through a large list of possible sources of fire damage over time that affect the player at the moment the flask only needs to flip one bit, e.g. "is_burning", from 1 to 0, that constitutes the removal of burning, and that, in its turn, propagates to the sources of fire damage over time. Isn't it how it's implemented?

I'm not sure I have a great grasp on the way you think this stuff is structured, but I have enough of one to say it's definitely not like this.

Have you considered making it so that burns deal significantly less damage during a Dousing flask's effect? Because as of right now it is pretty useless against e.g. Scorching Ray (very noticeable in PvP!) whereas a flask of Heat gives full protection from continuous sources of chill.

The flask's main purpose is i...

Currently arcane surge/innervate enable supported spells to be supported by duration supports (less duration) but not attacks.

This is not true. Supports cannot change which skill types they add to skills. They either support a skill or do not, and if they do, they add the types they are set to add. It's not possible for a given gem to add a duration type to spells but not to attacks if it supports both.

Both Innervate and Arcane Surge add the duration type to all skills they support, which allows supports that are restricted only to duration skills to apply. Increased duration doesn't support Frenzy, but starts to when Innervate is also added. This is working correctly.

Relatedly, Summon Phantasm on Kill Support + Chance to Bleed Support do not work together, but Storm Barrier Support + Summon Phantasm on Kill Support do*, possibly due to the same interaction as with innervate/arcane surge

Summon...

Already the name of a different debuff (the curse).

For a long time the new cold ailment had the placeholder name "Frostburn" because we were struggling to come up with a good name that fit it. Obviously we needed to change it before release because a cold-based ailment with "burn" in the name would be ridiculous.

You definitely have some good points, and I'm always trying to improve this stuff, so thank you. I've provided some clarificaitons, in the hopes they help.

"Ignite" is an "ailment" which makes you "burn" and its burn damage can be increased by investment into damage with ailments.

All correct.

But "burning" itself is a "status effect" that is connected to fire damage over time which can be removed with a dousing flask if it's caused by an ignite or Herald of Ash but not if it's a source that applies burn continuously.

Burning is not a "status effect". "Status effect" doesn't mean anything in PoE. Burning is also not "connected to" fire damage over time, it is fire damage over time. "Burning" is nothing more, or less, than a shorthand way to say "fire damge over time". All fire damage over time is burning, and nothing else is. Because Ignites deal fire damage over time, they deal burning d...

I'm not intending to call anyone out, more jokingly pointing out that I should have anticipated that an effect that useful would be re-used, despite there being no plans to do so at the time, and pushed for different descriptions from the start to account for that.

I can see how it could be read that way, though, so have edited my post to make my intent clearer.

That stat was never meant to be used except in combinating with the move speed one (on Unstoppable). Having both together substantially reduces the confusion.

Then, of course, we decided to put it on an item by itself.

The description of "slows" has been changed in 3.5.0 in a way that hopefully alleviates this confusion.

Poison is the ailment. Chaos damage is the damage type it deals.

"Burning" is just a shorthand for "fire damage over time".

This is fixed in 3.5.0 (in that the description now correctly reflects what the node actually does - the node hasn't changed functionality).

Your banner is your aura. Ichimonji won't prevent it affecting you. I suspect the changes to aura tech that allow banners to work may have also improved the consecrated ground interaction you mention.

thanks, fixed.