[Guide] Game Mechanics + Tips & Tricks

[Ulyaoth]

Greetings,

this is a collection with all kinds of Information about HoT.
--- !!!CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!!! ---

I am happy about every kind of Feedback, Suggestions, etc.
Also, please point me towards Typos and Mistakes, since I am no native english speaker.
Thank you in advance!

Happy Shredding,
Cheers!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3034282250

[🌺💗Tazzamorous💗🌺]

Hey so I figured I would give you some feedback on this guide. It gets used heaps so I finally took the time to read it. Good work putting this together for everyone! It's got pretty much everything in it.

My "feedback" is basically extra info that i saw missing. Some random inclusions from me. As well as info from questions I saw people ask that I don't recall seeing answered in the guide. I numbered these in case you wanted to ask any questions of me or reply. Just making it easy to identify each point. (There is no particular order to this list, it's numbered only to make identification easy.)

Feel free to include all/none of it. I don't mind. Just figured I could help out a bit seeing as you already do so much for others.

1. You might want to talk about the few exceptions where multistrike and attack speed multiply together. These are: Phantom Needles. Kugelblitz (the base emitter only). Ring Blades. Also mention that multistrike won't appear in the tooltip, but does affect the overall total displayed for attack speed. This should probs go in the stats and base vs non-base section.
   
   
2. For that matter it's almost worth a mention that LOTS of tooltips are broken, even some "Total Values" are broken. Though, people might find this disconcerting, so maybe not.
   
   
3. "Gahterer" is used a bit. It should be spelt "Gatherer". I don't normally pick on spelling mistakes but this would be something people search for and it won't show up because of the spelling error.
   
   
4. Similar to above; you used "Strg+F" but on English layout keyboard this would be "Ctrl+F" instead.
   
   
5. You might want to mention that when re-rolling ability scrolls (with upgrades present). It will 100% re-roll (the upgrade slot) to a different upgrade (if one is available). If you have already re-rolled through all available options then it will re-roll all 3 slots normally (meaning you might not get offered an upgrade at all). You can use this to ensure you always get the upgrade you want.
   
   
6. Where you mention "Buckets can be found to unlock the Well again". You might want to mention that these are a random drop from champions (I put all drop rates at the very end). They have an approximate drop rate of 2-10%.
   
   
7. Personal note from me: I don't think you really emphasised just how important Oblivion potions are. You did mention it, but I think it would be easy to miss just how important they are. They're the strongest tool we have for controlling the size of our trait pool (and thus ensuring we get to pick traits we want). Using them early is key, and then making sure you don't flood your pool by taking too many abilities quickly after. I find that everytime I help someone struggling with builds it is because they haven't used Oblivions, or used them enough. e.g. I have almost always use up all 8 by level 10.
   
   
8. Where you talk about attack speed in the stats, you might want to include a little section there to help people understand how this converts to an interval. i.e. 1.7/s = interval of 0.58. This is helpful for skills like Radiant Aura which use intervals instead. At the base level they still have the same stat X/s but it gets displayed differently and thus people might not understand why the interval doesn't seem to increase much as you get faster. You can convert normal attack speed to an interval by doing 1/X.
   
   
9. Where you talk about critical chance/effect chance, you might want to mention that effects that do something on critical (e.g. Sorceress/Transfixion) won't apply additional effects with additional critical hit %. 200% critical chance is treated as a single hit but with increased damage.
   
   
10. Where you talk about frost damage. Might want to mention that the size of the AOE is determined by the biggest single hit taken by the mob. The total damage is determined by the number of stacks.
    
    
11. You have a lot of examples in your guide. I don't think you need quite so many, though I'm probably not qualified to know if they are needed or not as I just prefer information dumps.
    
    
12. You don't talk about the defense and block stats. I think they're worth a mention. Esp since they have breakpoints where additional investment isn't worth it. Regarding enemies: Nothing you do (except using unblockable skills) effects the block chance of enemies. Their block chance is static, not dynamic like the player. Block chance is determined by the enemy. So you can always expect the same enemies to have the same block chance.
    
    
13. You say that Reveb Tink's have "double the value". This isn't quite right as it just adds the trait twice. This is a subtle difference but important enough for me to mention. Most of the time this amounts to the same thing, but an easy example is Sorceress where it doesn't: "Critical hits can electrify". When you reverb, you don't get a single chance with double the value, you get two chances to electrify with the same value (which is heaps better).
    
    
14. You didn't really talk about the knock-back stat. Dunno if it's important enough to bother though. Anyway, enemies have "mass" and they will be knocked-back according to how hard they're hit and what their mass is. e.g. Skeletons have low mass, and so get knocked back a long way. Bosses have very high mass and so barely move at all. Increases in knock-back increase the distance of knock-back proportional to mass. They will also begin affecting mobs that may have had too much mass to be affected with a lower knock-back.
    
    
15. You say Agony is dynamic, but Agony isn't dynamic anymore. To quote Mara it's "One level every 5 minutes" Though this isn't STRICTLY accurate. The latest you can hit agony 5 (without dying) is 5min remaining. The earliest is 6min. The average competent player will have no trouble achieving 6min. To "speed it up" you have kill mobs in a wave before the wave reaches maximum spawn capacity.
    
    
16. People asked if block or def is better.
    * Block is better for waves if you can reach a "common" damage value of mobs in your level. i.e. You have a 100% chance to block anything with 4x less damage than your block. So if you can get a block total that is 4x the expected (unmitigated) damage of mobs then it's super good. This will help you with waves, but probably won't contribute much during the boss fight (as almost all boss attacks do enough damage to be in the top-tier for block).
    * Otherwise, defense is vastly superior in general as it will help you in waves and in boss fights (where it puts in significant work) because it reduces any and all damage taken by a percentage.
    * Generally, i would advise banishing them both though as you should be dodging and not getting hit. (That is, reducing your trait pool by banishing is more important than any gains from better def/block)
    
    
17. Where you talk about crits, you missed out that this is added to the base damage. So to use your example:
    

    Originally posted by Ulyaoth Guide:

    e.g. 150% crit chance / 200% crit damage =
    50% chance for 200% damage and 50% chance for 400% damage

    * That's a 50% chance to do (base damage + (200% * base damage)) OR (base damage + (400% * base damage))
    * In cases where the character has a high initial attack but a low crit bonus (cleric/radiant) this "base" is a significant portion of the total damage.
    
    
18. You left Lands/Sage out of your character synergies thingy. Just some info on Lands for you:
    * The "Chance multiplier" for grenades is actually an exponent multiplier. So instead of it being Base * Multiplier, it's Base ^ Multiplier. Multistrike has a MASSIVE impact on grenade count.
    * Lands "Mark" Grenades have a lower proc-rate than the grenades when actually using Lands character. Won't bore you with the math, but lands has "/10000" and the mark has "/20000". It isn't half as effective, but that would be an OK way to describe it.
    
    
19. You were asked about the effect of Agony on EXP. So here is the all the info I have for you:
    These are the BASE values.
    Blue Gems = 1
    Yellow Gems = 10
    Purple Gems = 100
    Golden Gems = 1000 (aka "Radiant" Gems)
    Cluster Gems = sum of gems that got sucked in to make up the cluster (aka Gem "Heap")
    The value of EXP is determined when it is dropped (so waiting to collect at a higher agony does nothing). The base values are modified by your torment score (indirectly), xp modifier (on the player) as well as max HP of the mob you killed, and the monster difficulty. To give you an exact answer would require a lot effort. So if I was to summarise as best I could:

    Originally posted by Tazzunda:

    EXP is the product (("Monster Difficulty" * "Monster Max Health" * Overall Difficulty) * 0.012) * Player XP Modifier

    So, your current Agony level doesn't impact exp directly, rather it increases monster difficulty and MaxHP, resulting in more EXP from kills.
    
    
20. You were right with your answer to Reverbing Elemental Surge. You just get 2 "on hit" effects. That's it.
    
    
21. Small technical thing on the effects of elemental rings: They only check other elemental tags for addition/removal when you equip them. So un-equipping a ring only removes the "on hit" effect. Your main weapon will still retain the elemental tag until you equip a different elemental ring (which then performs a check and removes the old ring effects).
    This has 2 implications...
    * 1st: Once you apply the effects of an elemental ring, you can never remove it except to change it to a different one. You can never again return to "magic" or "physical". These are lost for the duration of the run.
    I think this is a really important thing to mention because most players would expect to be able to return to their original damage type upon taking it off.
    * 2nd: You can have 2 elemental effects active while only wearing 1 ring. Meaning you can replace one ring part way through a run. Like I said though, you do lose the "on hit" effect from the one you remove. This shouldn't be the reason people are wearing the rings though.
    
    
22. Lastly, some information about champion drops.
    * These drop probabilities are affected by Agony level. Increasing agony level will skew the value towards the higher end of the range.
    * These drop rates may not make sense (because they total >100%) but it's pulled from the code so it is accurate. These ranges are used by code to determine the likelihood of something happening. It checks each with increasing probability. This means you always get *something*.
    * Some drops have a maximum amount of times they can be spawned. e.g. You will never get a second "Bucket". Once you get it once, that's it. Don't /hope for another.
    * Remember, some enemies have set drops. e.g. every second non-boss (blue elites) will always drop an ability scroll and every boss always drops a yellow chest.
    * These drops are just for the yellow champions (which are the only ones with RNG drops).
    
    

    Drop	Probability	Max Drops
    150gold (6 items)	100%	Unlimited
    Ability Scroll	30% - 60%	9
    300gold (12 items)	15% - 45%	Unlimited
    Chest (Red / Upgrade)	20% - 33%	7
    Potion Bottle	4% - 20%	2
    600gold (24 items)	5% - 15%	Unlimited
    Bucket (Well Re-use)	2% - 10%	1
    1200gold (48 items)	0% - 10%	Unlimited

    
    (steam table for you so it's easy to copy into your guide. Use "reply" and it should put the code in the reply for an easy copy)

Cheers ^_^

[Ulyaoth]

First of all ,thanks for the Feedbeck!
This will be quite usefull!

Soooo
1.
In general, I am thinking about scrapping every math and pure technical sections, since only a tiny hand full of people are interest in this.

But Im thinking about doing an Ability Breakdown section where every stat is displayed and how it gets influenced.

Will be alot of work, but maybe a project for the future.

2.
Might be worth a note in "Numbers Section" if it will stay

3. / 4.
fixed

5.
added this under Ability Upgrades

6.
done

7.
dont know when you read it
i made changes today especially to this section Potion of Oblivion > Banish Value
and I made more detailed explanation under "In Depth Build Order"

8.
added intervall explanation

9.
added a line for single hit

10.
done

11.
Which specific? Might look into it

12.
maybe because i rarely use it ^^
dont know, never felt there were the necessity
maybe explaining block...
but this again, is a very technical aspect...

13.
Where specific? Coudnt find it.

14.
another technical
i would say its more annoying than anything (Spectral Fists *hust*)
dont know if i do something with this, but probalby not

15.
Agony Mode is a dynamic Difficulty Mode, unlocked after defeating the Lord of a stage.
The Agony Meter increases automatically at a fixed rate, ~1 level per 5 minutes.
If your Character dies, you loose one level of your Agony Meter.
This was meant, that if Agony goes up it gets harder, it goes down it gets easier
hence the explanation below.

I added
"...one level[/b] of your Agony Meter, WICH REDUCES DIFFICULTY.
"Agony V can be achieved at 6:00 with higher Kill Counts."

Should make it clearer.

16.
I banish them almost always only on tank builds^^
i think both are bad if you not fully commit
def might have better value for damage reduction

together with the Block I might think about a section
leme see...

17.
this is under Value Calculation Crit VS NON-Crit
i didnt want to put formulars in between, since not every reader is interest in

18.
made a disclaimer today, that this section gets reworked complelty
dont know if you missed it

19.
Didnt even noticed that someone asked ^^
nice info, might consider it, for technical details..
Edit: Found it! A long time ago...
Might be worth an EXP section...

21.
I mention that that the original damage type gets removed:
Equipping one Ring will remove the original Main Weapon Damage Type.
Equipping two of those Rings gives the Main Weapon both Damage Types
but will add the line:
Equipping one Ring will remove the original Main Weapon Damage Type FOR THE RUN.

One Ring can be exchanged for another Ring during the run,
while keeping both Elemental Damagy Types. The unequipped Elemental On-Hit Effect will be lost though.

22
might be another thing for a technical section in tandem with the xp values
I will see

Thanks alot,
Good Stuff!

Edit:
Isnt it possible anymore that multiple Buckets can drop?

Using Well > Bucket > Using Well > Bucket ?

[🌺💗Tazzamorous💗🌺]

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

1.
In general, I am thinking about scrapping every math and pure technical sections, since only a tiny hand full of people are interest in this.

But Im thinking about doing an Ability Breakdown section where every stat is displayed and how it gets influenced.

I think you should either...
A) Drop most of the math. Keep it for the particularly important stuff though (base vs non-base, and multistrike*attack speed). The math seriously matters for those two. I would imagine that anyone who is interested in doing the math, probably doesn't need the help understanding the actual math. They just need the information and how the mechanics work.
OR...
B) Include the math but go more in depth and explain the math for each portion of the game it is applicable. Basically give "math" its own section. Truly... an "in-depth" guide.

I think A is more appropriate though.

I don't think you should do an ability breakdown with every stat. This is subject to change every patch and it's very hard to be accurate (e.g. Spirit Warrior is affected by multistrike in the number of melee attacks, but for the Spirit Needles upgrade multistrike affects attack speed instead). Leave this for the wiki, if anywhere. The in-game encyclopedia might have this instead, when it comes out.

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

7.
dont know when you read it
i made changes today especially to this section Potion of Oblivion > Banish Value
and I made more detailed explanation under "In Depth Build Order"

A few hours ago. Though (from 18.) I think I somehow missed the most recent stuff. I'll read again.

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

11.
Which specific? Might look into it

I'll come back to you later (with the other thing).

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

12.

LOL. True. It's just seems that a new players seem to take them. Hence, I thought **some** discussion might be good.

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

13.
Where specific? Coudnt find it.

Under "Potion Usage".
* "for doubling one Trait" >> "for applying one trait twice"

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

15.

Valid. I was off with this feedback.

Originally posted by Ulyaoth:

Isnt it possible anymore that multiple Buckets can drop?

Using Well > Bucket > Using Well > Bucket ?

This is a hard-coded limit. The bucket still has a "MaxDrops = 1" and this value is still checked in the "choose_this_reward" function. So regardless of if you re-use the well or not, the game should never drop more than 1 bucket in a single run. I would be interested to know if ever this isn't the case.

[Ulyaoth]

01. Entry added - Stat Explanation
02. Entrys added in various Sections where it fits
03. fixed
04. fixed
05. Entry added - Ability Upgrades
06. Entry added - just low chance
07. reworked - Potion Usage
08. reworked - Stat Explanation
09. Entry added - Overcrit = Single Hit
10. Entry added - reworked - Damage Types, Effects and Attributes
11. Unchanged - I might keep the Examples as "Visualisation"
12. Entry added - New Section - Block VS Defense - "Defense" in General
13. fixed
14. Entry added - Stat Explanation - Force
--- New Section - Nerd Knowledge
15. fixed - Clearer Formulation (hope so)
16. Entry added - New Section - Block VS Defense - "Defense" in General
17. Entry added with Formula - Over- Crit-/Dot-/Effect- Chance
18. reworked
19. New Section - Nerd Knowledge
20. Unchanged
21. Entry added - Damage Types, Effects and Attributes
22. New Section - Nerd Knowledge

Reply
01. Stat Explanation will be advanced if needed and someones asks for more
--- will probably keept it in the Layout it currently is

It is probably done.
Cant think of any other interesting ore useful topic...

[Mara]

More than 2 well uses with items are not possible, therefore even if more than 1 bucket could drop, the well wouldn't activate again.

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by Mara (Aayph):

More than 2 well uses with items are not possible, therefore even if more than 1 bucket could drop, the well wouldn't activate again.

Thanks!

[Mara]

I have to thank you for maintaining such an awesome guide, it's helping a lot of people :3

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by Mara (Aayph):

Thanks alot! ^^

[🌺💗Tazzamorous💗🌺]

Originally posted by Mara (Aayph):

I have to thank you for maintaining such an awesome guide, it's helping a lot of people :3

Mark this as the answer to the topic.

It is the only acceptable response.

[🌺💗Tazzamorous💗🌺]

So you were asked about the champion modifiers etc. so i put this together for you. feel free to link it. i dont think it's worth inclusion in your guide beyond a simple link. it's too specific.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2218750/discussions/5/4297068922554925133/

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by 🌺💗Tazzunda💗🌺:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2218750/discussions/5/4297068922554925133/

Thx, linked it under the Agony Section.

[🌺💗Tazzamorous💗🌺]

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