Devotion:Skill linkages.

[frdnwsm]

Some Devotions do not require linkage to a skill, but many do need such a link at the final Devotion point in order to get experience and to activate the terminal Devotion effect. I have a few specific questions regarding this process.

I have a DW pistol Purifier who does mainly Fire damage, with Chaos as a secondary damage type. Since many Bosses have high fire resistances, I picked up Soleiel's Wichblade and Rhowan's Crown for RR. What is unclear to me is whether that RR is always in effect for all my pistol attacks, or only when the Devotion special effects fire off. (These would be Eldritch Fire and Elemental Storm.)

If the latter is true, then I also have to review the character skills that I use to bind them, since they greatly affect the rate at which these effects proc. If I link them to a pistol skill like Storm Spread, they proc at around 25%. Linking them to Demon's Breath raises this to 75%, and using his movement rune (Burning Rifts) raises it to 100%.

Lastly, these effects are described as occurring "On attack". What attack mode? Can regular default pistol attack trigger them? Or do I need to fire off Demon's Breath, if that is the skill I have linked them with, in order for them to proc?

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

any devotion skill requires being attached to a skill, there is no exception for this outside of constellations that don't have a devotion skill obviously

devotion skills' proc effect is only ever in effect once said devotion have procced, ie Rhowans Crown RR is only ever active when you proc Elemental Storm and only for the duration of Elemental Storm

the "attack" is the skill the devotion is attached to and nothing else - if you have Elemental Storm attached to Storm Spread only storm spread can proc the devotion skill
^what the "on attack" qualifier means is that the devotion skill can only be attached to offensive skills, unlike other passive devotions that need to be attached to a passive skill like a buff, ex Ghoul to Olerons Rage

[Azunai]

on attack just means that the effect can proc when you fire the skill you bound it to (as opposed to powers that trigger when you get hit, when you score a crit, when your health drops etc.)

the RR is directly tied to the triggered spells. eldritch fire is a debuff that affects a specific creature and that creature takes extra damage from fire & chaos damage (iirc the debuff can also spread to other nearby creatures on its own).

elemental storm is a stationary spell that hurts every creature that is close enough and also gives them the RR debuff that will last for 2 seconds. but the debuff gets refreshed while the creature is still affected by the storm, so in a bossfight where you just tank&spank some high hitpoint target you'll usually have 1-2 storms floating on top of the boss and he'll have the debuff for the whole fight.

eldritch fire is trickier, so i would probably bind that directly to firestrike and then bind elemental storm to flashbang or termite mines or so. binding stuff to WPS is usually a bad idea since you reduce the chance to trigger the skill significantly (you only get a percentage chance to trigger on a skill that itself only has a percentage chance to happen).

of the purifier WPS storm spread is probably the best suited as a devotion trigger since it scores several hits with a single proc, so it has multiple chances to trigger the devotion power. i'd only bind less important skills to WPS, though. maybe some background clutter damage skill you picked up along the way.

[madrigal]

There are a lot of legit ways to do this.
If it's any help, my Fire/Chaos Purifier has it attached to Inquisitor Seal. Basically you cast the seal and when a monster steps on the seal, Elemental Storm has a chance to proc. Since the seal lasts a long time, it works pretty well.
Demon's Breath is a good choice. I have Meteor Shower attached to Demon's Breath at the moment, so I had to put ES somewhere else.
You can attach it to Storm Spread. It has a lower chance to proc, but your pistol fire rate is high, so it should still work. For my Fire/Chaos build, I'm not using Storm Spread since it is a different damage type.

[frdnwsm]

OK thanks. I was using Seal elsewhere, but maybe I'll change some skills around. I have Fire Strike bound to Ukzuin's Torch though; this triggers Meteor Storm pretty much constantly, so I am reluctant to swap that one around.

[Azunai]

that's a waste. meteors have 3s cooldown or so, so you're going to fire 20+ shots in the meantime which can't proc the effect since the skill is still recharging.

put a skill wit low/no cooldown on your spam attack.

the meteors also trigger reliably if you slap them on something like flashbang that hits multiple targets

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

meteor is long cd mid proc chance skill, so you want it on a matching cd skill which in turn will take the proc chance to 100%
likewise Elemental storm is a long duration but lower cd skill, meaning you can still have it on a semi-long cooldown skill, ups the proc chance while still being able to have 100% uptime on the elemental storm duration
ex Eldritch Fire - it's a low cooldown low proc chance skill, you want that on a spamable or "frequent hitting" attack to maximize uptime. Having it on seal has the draw back of you not being able to proc the vital Eldritch Fire while moving/kiting or at a distance since Seal cast range is low - you ideally want Eldritch Fire on something more reliable and fast hitting - aoe procs mean nothing in a solo boss fight, then you suddenly just got an application chance once per second

[madrigal]

Yeah, Devotion-linking is an art.
Above are all good advice.

[frdnwsm]

The objection about using Fire Strike to proc Meteor Storm isn't completely valid. The CD time is indeed 3.5 seconds, but it lasts for 3 seconds. Since you can only have 1 Storm in effect at any given time, the actual downtime is only 0.5 seconds. With my current set-up, I have Storm active pretty much continuously.

I do understand the point that you make about Eldritch Fire, however. Right now I have it linked to Demon Breath, but I can swap those around. I'll link Soleil to Fire Strike and Meteor to Demon Breath and see how that works out.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

The objection about using Fire Strike to proc Meteor Storm isn't completely valid.

i can guarantee you it's completely valid, you don't put mid proc rate long cd devotions on a main spamamable unless it's not an important devotion or you have no other more important procs to replace it with
^for you Meteor on firestrike is off on both marks
you want Meteor to be attached to a similar cd skill, for the reason that it then jumps to 100% proc, and you get 100% uptime by sharing cooldown
- since you can't get 100% passive uptime on Solael, because it's a low proc low cd devotion, you don't want it on a "long" cd skill, you want it on spamable/fast hitting skill or aoe, ex fire strike or flash bang or thermite mines etc etc something that then despite the low proc chance sorta "guarantees" you 100% uptime - now ask me why i bothered to mention thermite mines when in the other post i said Seal wasn't optimal despite the 2 skills being sorta similar in type :P

[ovtchina]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

ex fire strike or flash bang or thermite mines etc etc something that then despite the low proc chance sorta "guarantees" you 100% uptime - now ask me why i bothered to mention thermite mines when in the other post i said Seal wasn't optimal despite the 2 skills being sorta similar in type :P

Why indeed? I never bothered assigning any devotion to them despite actively using them all the time on a shieldbreaker. If I'm not mistaken they only count as one tick per second no matter how many mines hit the target simultaneously and don't even have increased chance to compensate for this. (So against a boss - even if you facetank or are very careful with mine recasting - solael will need an average of 7 seconds to activate (with the duration I think it was 4...).
I'd even consider putting it on non-spammable stun jacks for greatly increased chance per hit - and every separate stun jack counting separately (though I currently have solael on mortars and very happy with the result).

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by ovtchina:

they only count as one tick per second no matter how many mines hit the target simultaneously

nope, and that's what makes mines good for devotion procs (aside from fiddly af placement ofc)
- they share the cooldown of a proc, but each flare can proc individually, twice per second(or there abouts i think is their attack speed), so with just one row of mines you have 3xproc chance; seal is only 1, double toss mines you have 6 - gotta wait 5sec cooldoown to toss another seal to up it's proc chance to 2
^assuming solo target ofc
it's also why something like Fiend Flame Torrent is excellent on mines (again if you can deal with the placement) or basically anything low cooldown-wise, making mines+devotion super useful in especially facetank builds (still gotta deal with placement vs boss placement ofc which is the sucky thing about mines)

[ovtchina]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

Originally posted by ovtchina:

they only count as one tick per second no matter how many mines hit the target simultaneously

nope, and that's what makes mines good for devotion procs (aside from fiddly af placement ofc)
- they share the cooldown of a proc, but each flare can proc individually, twice per second(or there abouts i think is their attack speed), so with just one row of mines you have 3xproc chance; seal is only 1, double toss mines you have 6 - gotta wait 5sec cooldoown to toss another seal to up it's proc chance to 2
^assuming solo target ofc
it's also why something like Fiend Flame Torrent is excellent on mines (again if you can deal with the placement) or basically anything low cooldown-wise, making mines+devotion super useful in especially facetank builds (still gotta deal with placement vs boss placement ofc which is the sucky thing about mines)

Need to do more proper tests then :)
I tested them with solael against a lonely Homestead dummy (using pet attack command to get the mines in the mood to even trigger devotions against dummies...) and the results were horrible, solael being active half the time only. Probably needed testing against proper monsters I guess, will check today later :)

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

i literally just tested it with both fiend and solael to make sure the patch didn't change anything/didn't put my foot in my mouth, and they could all proc/had 100% uptime like usual
my guess is you aint testing them right/neglecting some mines stuff
as in "small radius" - need proper placement to test on tiny dummies, and remember to spam pet attack button <-- without that last one they wont proc proper and is a mistake people often forget. One click is not enough, you gotta spam the order button througout

[ovtchina]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

and remember to spam pet attack button <-- without that last one they wont proc proper and is a mistake people often forget. One click is not enough, you gotta spam the order button througout

Indeed, I didn't do that ( though why would I... doesn't make sense, any other pet properly attacks with a single click until the end...probably, not so sure anymore, since I always have some temporary pets mixed in and have to spam the button anyway). Probably better tested against real monsters then.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

i don't know what it is with pseudo pets and target dummies vs devo procs but it's the same for all of them, blade spirit, guardians etc etc even multi mortar traps and doubly so for mines (guessing mines is even more affected because pseudo dots static "aura"dmg) - but when you are testing multi pseudo pets on dummies you need to spam pet attack to get "monster like" procs, it's sorta as if you aren't actually enganging "all pets/attacks" on dummies without direct orders (i learned this years ago getting sht procs on dummy compared to live scenarios)
anyways, the absolute easiest way for you to confirm this, aside from the above mentioned order spam, is to test it with Fiend/Flame Torrent, because solael Eldritch Fire can be a bit deceptive in multi target scenarioes when live testing with monsters because of the plague nature of eldritch fire. Flame Torrent however is static, and it will proc on the mine that triggered it, ie you will get a distinct circling flame on the individual mine that procced it, making it real easy to see they trigger individually when you have 3-6 flaming circles in 2seconds - makes sense?