Force Pulse cleave damage, and status effects generally

FrancisCrawford · August 2022

I haven't rethought my builds for many patches, but it seems like time now. And the vast majority of my play is as a staff wielder. I've generally used Crushing Shock for the interrupt rather than Force Pulse, but we all would like to do more damage. Besides, in a group of more than 2 I'm usually the healer, and I'd also like to debuff. So:

Does Force Pulse cleave damage count as single-target (this would be my guess) or AoE?
What type of damage is Force Pulse cleave damage? (I'd guess the element of the staff, rather than magic.)
What's the radius of Force Pulse cleave damage?
How are the status effects commonly inflicted? Changing targets for Force Pulse? Skllls like Winter's Revenge?
What does or doesn't buff Occult Overload damage?
Is it ever useful for a PvE non-tank to go to the extreme of running the newish Serpent's Disdain set, to ensure that status effects really stick?

FrancisCrawford · August 2022

And while we're at it:

7. Can pet damage trigger Occult Overload?
8. Could somebody please remind me how the add/multiply arithmetic on Charged works? With the new figure of 365%, what's the actually likelihod of proccing a status effect on a 10% base probability hit?
9. It was said in another thread that status effects have had their damage cut. Is there a link to reliable numbers?

ZOS_Hadeostry · August 2022

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding

YandereGirlfriend · August 2022

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

And while we're at it:

7. Can pet damage trigger Occult Overload?
8. Could somebody please remind me how the add/multiply arithmetic on Charged works? With the new figure of 365%, what's the actually likelihod of proccing a status effect on a 10% base probability hit?
9. It was said in another thread that status effects have had their damage cut. Is there a link to reliable numbers?

I can answer a few of these:

1. The cleave is Magic Damage (which is random and doesn't comport with the skill, IMO).
2. Charged (and most other status effect mods) are additive. This is not the case for certain special multipliers that I won't name because I don't want them to get nerfed just in case they are not mean to scale that way.
3. Some of the non-damage synergies had their damage cut but it doesn't really make a difference, it's trivial.

WrathOfInnos · August 2022

Last I checked, the Force Pulse cleave was not considered single target or AoE, and was therefore unaffected by Deadly Aim, Biting Aura or Inferno/Lightning Staves. Same thing for Mystic Orb, which similarly zaps nearby enemies.

IMO this is a bug, and all damage should fall into either AoE or ST categories. AFAIK this was never fixed, but I have not checked this patch.

The radius is 8m, but it is measured from the center of the boss. So with Nahviintaas for example it is difficult to hit the dragon and cleave the adds with force pulse, since they would need to be inside the dragon's hitbox.

All % increases to status effect chance are additive, then multiply be the base % chance. So with 365% from Charged, 100% from Elemental Force and 60% from Flawless Ritual CP you get 525% x 10% = 52.5% chance to proc each status effect. Unfortunately these status effects don't help the cleave because they proc on the targeted enemy and for the splash damage to work a nearby enemy must have a status effect.

FrancisCrawford · August 2022

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Last I checked, the Force Pulse cleave was not considered single target or AoE, and was therefore unaffected by Deadly Aim, Biting Aura or Inferno/Lightning Staves. Same thing for Mystic Orb, which similarly zaps nearby enemies.

IMO this is a bug, and all damage should fall into either AoE or ST categories. AFAIK this was never fixed, but I have not checked this patch.

The radius is 8m, but it is measured from the center of the boss. So with Nahviintaas for example it is difficult to hit the dragon and cleave the adds with force pulse, since they would need to be inside the dragon's hitbox.

All % increases to status effect chance are additive, then multiply be the base % chance. So with 365% from Charged, 100% from Elemental Force and 60% from Flawless Ritual CP you get 525% x 10% = 52.5% chance to proc each status effect. Unfortunately these status effects don't help the cleave because they proc on the targeted enemy and for the splash damage to work a nearby enemy must have a status effect.

Tooltip splash damage is about 10% higher than base damage. Real life presumably reverses that, more or less, in light of the bug you noted; still, it's close. So hitting a different target with each Force Pulse so as to spread status effects around doesn't sound crazy ... but does anybody actually use that tactic?

Note that at 52.5% chance per hit you should have an 89.3% chance of inflicting at least 1 status effect per triple hit.

Also, only one person per group needs to be doing this for all Force Pulsers to benefit.

TheGreatBlackBear · August 2022

I think you're asking way too many questions. Just use it during rash pulls and trust the process.

FrancisCrawford · August 2022

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

I think you're asking way too many questions. Just use it during rash pulls and trust the process.

I'm looking at dungeon duos, dungeon PUGs, and stuff like that.

And I'm looking at changing my guilds for those contexts.

So the knowledge of trials theorycrafters is very valuable, but I need to adapt it for my own purposes.