"On attack / hit:" and other trigger questions

[The Wise Wolf]

So Vinakinesis has the trigger "on attack / hit". Does that mean if it hits it applies twice in total?

And while writing this, a few more questions came to my mind.

If a trigger is "on applying an effect", and I have both an "on hit" that applies bleed and one that applies entangle, I assume the trigger goes off twice, one for each effect?

If a trigger is "on dealing X / Y damage", and I deal both X and Y damage, it triggers twice? (thouth now that I think about it, there isn't really a way to deal two damage types "at the same time", so I figure it has to trigger twice most likely)

[The Wise Wolf]

Additional question that came up in my current run.
Storm Knights have Penetration, which is "On hit: ignore 90% armor and block". But logically that doesn't really make sense, since if I understand correctly "hit" only occurs if an attack made it past armor and block already. So it should probably be an "On attack" trigger?

[Darloth]

I can confirm that Vinakinesis does indeed get a second set of stacks if you hit, so it applies twice if you don't miss!

For the storm knights, dodging is a thing, so it's really more of an "If not dodged: ignore 90% of armour and block" as far as I could tell. They certainly ignore armour and block almost all of the time!

[Mike]

I think it also means only things considered an official "hit" get the reduction. If you have damage being applied because of an aura or damage over time then it doesn't get it.

Some abilities create hits, some create extra attacks, and some just deal damage.

[The Wise Wolf]

Originally posted by Darloth:

I can confirm that Vinakinesis does indeed get a second set of stacks if you hit, so it applies twice if you don't miss!

For the storm knights, dodging is a thing, so it's really more of an "If not dodged: ignore 90% of armour and block" as far as I could tell. They certainly ignore armour and block almost all of the time!

My point was that at the point you got hit it's too late to adjust armor/block, since by manual hit is "an attack that connected and dealt damage", so by definition that's post armor and block calculation. The fact that if written as "on attack" it would apply to missed attacks either is kinda moot, since a missed attack won't calculate against armor/block anyway.

Originally posted by Mike:

I think it also means only things considered an official "hit" get the reduction. If you have damage being applied because of an aura or damage over time then it doesn't get it.

Some abilities create hits, some create extra attacks, and some just deal damage.

"On attack" would also only work on things that generate a hit, since a hit comes from an attack by definition. So there would be no change here.

[Rithrin]

Originally posted by The Wise Wolf:

"On attack" would also only work on things that generate a hit, since a hit comes from an attack by definition. So there would be no change here.

Actually, hits are not attacks in this game. Something that triggers on hits will trigger when an ability generates a hit, or an attack connects, but something that triggers on attacks does not trigger on things that generate hits.

[The Wise Wolf]

Originally posted by Rithrin:

Originally posted by The Wise Wolf:

"On attack" would also only work on things that generate a hit, since a hit comes from an attack by definition. So there would be no change here.

Actually, hits are not attacks in this game. Something that triggers on hits will trigger when an ability generates a hit, or an attack connects, but something that triggers on attacks does not trigger on things that generate hits.

Right, I forgot some things generate hits directly, not attacks (but do those check armor/block?). I think the problem is actually that "hit" is trying to mean two different things currently.

[Draken]

Pretty sure only attacks trigger dodge, block and armor checks.
I just had a Stormbringer that had so many hit triggers that he oneshot just about all maps once the first hit triggered.
The King of Many Colors lasted two rounds and he was alone after the first.
I didn't see guard or dodge messages for the hits, just damage.

[Rithrin]

Originally posted by The Wise Wolf:

Originally posted by Rithrin:

Actually, hits are not attacks in this game. Something that triggers on hits will trigger when an ability generates a hit, or an attack connects, but something that triggers on attacks does not trigger on things that generate hits.

Right, I forgot some things generate hits directly, not attacks (but do those check armor/block?). I think the problem is actually that "hit" is trying to mean two different things currently.

There's a little note under all the skills that generate hits directly mentioning that they bypass all defenses - I forget the specific language - and I think all of them also specify that they use your Main Hand item for damage type.

It is a little confusing at first, but basically an attack may trigger both 'on attack' and 'on hit' abilities, provided the attack was successful, but a generated hit will never trigger 'on attack' abilities. Then both of them can also trigger 'when dealing X damage' (like when dealing Blood damage, apply Bleed stack) or 'when applying Y stacks' (like when applying Entangle, deal blunt damage).

I've definitely ruined many builds early on because I kept conflating hits with attacks, wondering why the Charge ability wasn't triggering with Projections and so on, or ignoring really powerful combinations because I thought all these free hits would miss on a low accuracy character, etc.

[The Wise Wolf]

Originally posted by Rithrin:

Originally posted by The Wise Wolf:

Right, I forgot some things generate hits directly, not attacks (but do those check armor/block?). I think the problem is actually that "hit" is trying to mean two different things currently.

There's a little note under all the skills that generate hits directly mentioning that they bypass all defenses - I forget the specific language - and I think all of them also specify that they use your Main Hand item for damage type.

It is a little confusing at first, but basically an attack may trigger both 'on attack' and 'on hit' abilities, provided the attack was successful, but a generated hit will never trigger 'on attack' abilities. Then both of them can also trigger 'when dealing X damage' (like when dealing Blood damage, apply Bleed stack) or 'when applying Y stacks' (like when applying Entangle, deal blunt damage).

I've definitely ruined many builds early on because I kept conflating hits with attacks, wondering why the Charge ability wasn't triggering with Projections and so on, or ignoring really powerful combinations because I thought all these free hits would miss on a low accuracy character, etc.

My original point kinda still stands, that for the Penetration ability "on hit" makes no sense, since in case of an attack it's too late (an attack that "hit" already made it past defenses) and the free hits don't check defenses. So "on attack" still makes more sense, since for the free hits the ability changes nothing anyway XD

[Rithrin]

Originally posted by The Wise Wolf:

My original point kinda still stands, that for the Penetration ability "on hit" makes no sense, since in case of an attack it's too late (an attack that "hit" already made it past defenses) and the free hits don't check defenses. So "on attack" still makes more sense, since for the free hits the ability changes nothing anyway XD

Oh, gotcha, in terms of the Storm Knights, I see what you're saying. The Storm Knights are just hitting with a melee attack, though. Auto-hits are usually a separate thing with their own rules, though, so a regular melee attack hit doesn't naturally ignore defenses. I believe the Storm Knights attack, which does an accuracy check, then if it hits, the game determines whether the attack was blocked/shrugged, so their ability still has an effect.

If it triggered "on attack", attack rolls don't interact with block or armor, so it wouldn't really make sense.

[The Wise Wolf]

Originally posted by Rithrin:

Originally posted by The Wise Wolf:

My original point kinda still stands, that for the Penetration ability "on hit" makes no sense, since in case of an attack it's too late (an attack that "hit" already made it past defenses) and the free hits don't check defenses. So "on attack" still makes more sense, since for the free hits the ability changes nothing anyway XD

Oh, gotcha, in terms of the Storm Knights, I see what you're saying. The Storm Knights are just hitting with a melee attack, though. Auto-hits are usually a separate thing with their own rules, though, so a regular melee attack hit doesn't naturally ignore defenses. I believe the Storm Knights attack, which does an accuracy check, then if it hits, the game determines whether the attack was blocked/shrugged, so their ability still has an effect.

If it triggered "on attack", attack rolls don't interact with block or armor, so it wouldn't really make sense.

My point is that it doesn't make sense "on hit", as, again, per the guide's description, "On hit: an attack that connects and deals damage". So that's clearly *after* block and armor calculation, as only then we can know if it connected (dodge) and dealt damage (block/armor). You wouldn't expect "on hit: deal fire damage" to deal fire damage before it checked armor, only after (and if it made it past the armor), but here "on hit: ignore 90% armor" is supposed to happen *as* it checks armor.

I mentioned the extra hits only to point out that it wouldn't make sense there *either*, that's not my main point here.

On the other hand I argue that "on attack" would make some some sense, since we can think of an attack as the whole process where it calculates evasion/block/armor. So it is ignoring 90% armor and block *during an attack*. But this isn't perfect either, as it isn't really a trigger.

Imo the actual correct wording would be "This unit's attacks ignore 90% of armor/block" since honestly it isn't even a trigger. I'm not sure if there even is another ability in the game that works like that (basically treating something as if it was different for purposes of a check), because all other abilities in the game are either triggers or stat modifications, while this just isn't either.

[Rithrin]

Yeah, fair enough, there's really no such thing as a true passive ability in the game.