Confusion about afflictions & stacks

[Lazy Dragon]

Heyoh!
So, absolutely loving the game, but one technical thing, i simply haven't been able to figure or find an answer to anywhere, and hope maybe someone here might know.

One piece of gear for example says:
"Each affliction on an enemy also reduces their defense by 10%".

So, in itself, not that complex, right?
But, what i can't seem to figure, is whether several stacks of one affliction, counts several times, for the case of triggering this, for example?

Like, would 5x burning, reduce the enemies defense by 50%?
Or still just 10%, because it's -one affliction- with several stacks, of it?
Would i need to make an enemy both burning, chilled, shocked, knocked down and staggered, to have their defense reduced by 50%?

Anyone happen to know the answer to this, i'd be mucho grateful!
Thanks in advance! <3

[Sentient_Toaster]

I would interpret it as the latter (needing *different* afflictions), but the developers chose not to document things in detail nor provide a combat log that would help figure these out.

[Lazy Dragon]

Yeah, that uncertainty, is also what i do find a wee tad frustrating, to be honest.. Because fair enough if you don't wanna take players by the hand and treat us like toddlers, but technical stuff like this, really ought to have been given a wee bit more focus.

Would not even require more then a line or two somewhere, explaining or clarifying it.

[Lazy Dragon]

Bloody hell, might just start crunch-testing these kinda things myself, again..

Just hoped i wouldn't have to, anymore

[CrazyOdd]

Most of the game is like that, because we don't have the tactical part of combat. Like, what does "reduce by 10% defence" even mean? Is it 10% of the total? or is it just a 10 flat value?

Lets say an enemy can have 150% defence, because of difficulty, first one would reduce it to 135% while the second to 140%.

Then you take "stacking" into account, which ether takes into account the new value or the old total. First would then be 121.5 and the second would be 130...

Or in other words: +50 Mana is straight forward, +10% damage, not so much...
So just keep stacking the values and hope it does enough...

[Lazy Dragon]

Well, im thinking that at least my little conundrum here, should be somewhat testable, at least.

If one finds a place with a somewhat resilient enemy, and then tests out hitting them, just standard smack, with light attacks, after stacking, like, 8 burns or bleeds or whatever single-type stack.
And then compare that damage to another run, where you spread out literally as many afflictions as you can, on that same opponent, that you also once again hit with those same standard light attacks.

Then either there'll be no real difference in damage, meaning that the defense reduction worked in both cases/instances, or you'll see a major difference while its only scattered afflictions, due to 70-100% reduced defense, while they're on.

That's at least one of the ways we'd usually go brute-force test things before :)